


Bring Your Scientist To Work Day

by Shadow_Side



Series: The Eye And The Aperture [5]
Category: Portal (Video Game), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/F, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Side/pseuds/Shadow_Side
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wheatley has an insane plan and Kevin will only need to alter reality a <i>little</i> to pull it off. Unfortunately it's Bring Your Scientist To Work Day, which means things inevitably go from bad to worse. And then much worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Your Scientist To Work Day

**Author's Note:**

> And so I come to what is the last part of this series… for now, at least. Given that it was only ever supposed to be a stand-alone one-shot, getting this far is quite a thrill for me, even if a lot of it is due to the fact that I couldn't actually stop… for which I entirely blame them! I also wish to apologise – retrospectively and in advance – for Kevin, who was originally only supposed to be in one part and has now ended up in three, and who is a very, very bad person.
> 
> Many thanks once again to Davechicken for the beta, for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Clock (you'll see…) and for making all the lovely banners that I have now added to all the previous parts of this series. This one is set after Episode 35 ( _Lazy Day_ ) but before Episode 36 ( _Missing_ ) of _Welcome To Night Vale_ , and also covers some of the _Portal_ side-canon established in the official post-1, pre-2 webcomic _[Lab Rat](http://www.thinkwithportals.com/comic/#1)_.
> 
>  

It starts – perhaps appropriately enough – with an explosion.

It's only a _small_ explosion, but given that it's coming from the direction of his boyfriend's lab, Cecil can't help looking up. He's sitting in Carlos' living room, laptop on his knee, working on an editorial entitled _'Light and Mirrors: Why Sunspots are your Friend,'_ for tomorrow's broadcast. It's just as he's getting to the part about solar energy enhancing long-term memory that the explosion cuts the air.

It's followed by silence. Cecil wonders if he ought to go investigate, but after a moment the door to the lab opens and Carlos staggers out. He wanders slightly dazedly into the living room and drops down onto the couch opposite Cecil… and how the man can still look _that_ amazing whilst covered in ash and dishevelled from the blast is anyone's guess.

But he does.

"No joy?" Cecil asks him.

Carlos shakes his head. "No joy. I swear that teslonium hates me even more than osmium does, and osmium's the reason I don't remember 2002. Maybe you should come talk to it again. It didn't explode for at least an hour after you did that last time and I was able to get all sorts of additional readings."

Cecil hits save and closes his laptop. "Anything for you," he says. "Do you want me to be Good Scientist or Bad Scientist?"

"Oh, definitely Good Scientist," Carlos replies. "It already likes you. No sense in upsetting it."

They stand, and they're just about to head through to the lab when there's a knock at the front door. "Hmmm… I wonder who that could be…" Carlos mutters, dragging a hand through his hair – to get rid of the worst of the ash – and heading into the hall to see.

"Carlos," comes a voice, the moment the door opens. "We've got a problem."

"Oh dear," Carlos replies, deadpan. "They've found the bodies, haven't they?"

"What?" says the first speaker, apparently having missed what is (hopefully) supposed to be a joke. "No. No. Far worse. Can we come in?"

"Sure," Carlos says, and walks back into the living room with two people in tow – a man and a woman – both in lab coats and with expressions of extreme concern.

Cecil doesn't know all of Carlos' team of scientists well: some of them come by quite often, whereas others he almost never sees (and he still hasn't ever met Bill, who lives in the basement of the seismic monitoring station and refuses to come out because – he says – the clouds are watching him.)

These two Cecil has seen before. The woman – Arlene – and the man – Toby – have been part of Night Vale's scientific community for years, and were among the ones who invited Carlos to move here to lead their team in the first place. Right now they both look deeply alarmed and stand side-by-side, staring at Carlos as if hoping he'll save them from whatever as-yet-unknown evil they're currently facing.

"What is it?" Carlos says, obviously a little nervous too in the face of his colleagues' worried expressions. "What's happened?"

"We just got a press release through from the City Council," Arlene replies. "We knew it was them even before we read it because they're still insisting on using courier pigeons, and the poor things explode as soon as we take the messages off them. We think it's supposed to stop the messages falling into the wrong hands, but of course it doesn't work because they only explode _after_ we remove the message capsules."

"I see," Carlos answers, carefully. "Go on. What did the message say?"

"Just look!" Toby exclaims, handing an ornate parchment scroll to him.

Carlos unrolls it and it's obvious from his expression that he understands at once what's wrong. He sighs, and turns so that Cecil can read the scroll over his shoulder.

 _'By order of the City Council,'_ it declares, _'the next calendar week is designated as Night Vale Science Week. To kick off the festivities, we will begin with our annual Bring Your Scientist To Work Day, in which all of Night Vale's many scientists will be required to attend work with another member of our community. This will have the double benefit of exposing other workplaces to scientific thought and method, and of exposing our scientists to normal and less weird ways of life that they may have never experienced before.'_

"I can't take this again, Carlos!" Toby exclaims. "Last year I spent the day with the board of directors at Flaky-Os. They didn't even know what a slide-rule was! It took me _weeks_ to recover!"

Arlene pats him supportively on the shoulder. "We can try to get a placement together this year," she says. "I've got a cousin who works in the food court at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. We could aim to get in there for the day."

"Not a chance!" Toby exclaims. "You go anywhere near that place and let on you're a scientist, and before you know it they're trying to persuade you to go check on the miniature city underneath Lane Five."

"Which you really, really want to avoid," Carlos says with a little shudder, which makes Cecil grip his hand.

"There must be something you can do!" insists Arlene, looking desperately at Carlos. "Last year three of us didn't make it through the day, and with all the budget cuts we really can't afford to lose any more members of the team."

"Plus we don't want anyone else to die," Toby adds.

"Yeah, that too," Arlene agrees.

"I don't know what to suggest," Carlos says. "Let me think about it and I'll see what I can come up with…"

"…I have an idea," Cecil interjects, which makes Carlos look at him hopefully.

"You do?"

"Yes. It's going to be Night Vale Science Week, right?"

"Right…" Carlos replies, evidently not sure where Cecil is going with this.

"Right," Cecil echoes. "So it's pretty much a given that I'll be doing some special reports on my show as part of it. So how about more than that? How about an entire show dedicated to the scientists of Night Vale? You could all come along – anyone who doesn't want to go somewhere else – and I'll interview you on air. You can talk about your favourite experiments or elements or something, and it will be educational for everyone… and it will save you all from having to find somewhere less safe."

"You'd do that for us?" Arlene exclaims, looking delighted and hopeful.

Cecil smiles. "Of course I would. You know how into science I am."

This makes Carlos blush a little, and grip his hand tighter. "Thanks," he says. "We owe you."

"Oh no, just being on the show will be thanks enough," Cecil tells them excitedly. "It's going to be one to remember!"

***

Carlos wakes up in the middle of the night. It's a few days later – the night before Science Week kicks off with Bring Your Scientist To Work Day – and he's almost looking forward to tomorrow now.

It has to be better than last year. He'd only been living in Night Vale a few months when he found out about this latest among their slightly insane traditions, and ended up spending the day at Night Vale Community College, conclusively proving that you can't cook crystal meth in a tumble dryer, and very nearly landing himself on the Secret Police's Most Wanted list. (He'd managed to convince them it was an experiment gone wrong in the end, which was the only way to save two of his students, Jimmy and Tommy, from a fate worse than death in the form of something called the Dark Box… but that's what you get for asking your substitute teacher to 'help you with an extra-credit project' that turns out to be cover for a deeply inept and scientifically implausible drug ring.)

But this time, he and seven of the other scientists are going down to the community radio station. Officially, they're there to help with the broadcast process, but each of them is also getting an interview slot on Cecil's show, and it promises to be quite a day.

Carlos really can't thank his boyfriend enough, as he's been saying (in more ways than one) every night since Cecil first made the offer. But as he wakes up mere hours before the day itself kicks off, he realises there's something he could do that would make the show even more spectacular.

Quietly, he slips out of bed, locating his pyjama trousers and tugging them on, then picking up his phone and walking out into the living room, shutting the door quietly behind him. When he's alone, he finds the number he's looking for – which isn't actually a number at all – and hits the speed dial.

There's a moment, and then the call connects. "Hello?" comes a now-familiar voice: GLaDOS, who – given that the Aperture facility looks to be a permanent fixture under the town – is now Night Vale's second least-human scientist (it's best not to ask about Benton Fowler). It's been nearly a month since they last talked – since the aftermath of the Augmentor incident – but at least this time he's not calling because of some impending disaster.

"Hey, it's Carlos."

"Oh no," GLaDOS says, at once. "Whatever you've found, or heard, or dreamt, I want nothing to do with it. I'm not here. I'm in the shower. Or something. One of those things."

And she hangs up.

Carlos sighs and hits the redial. "No!" GLaDOS insists, the moment the call re-connects.

"Hear me out!" Carlos says, before GLaDOS can hang up again. "It's nothing bad, I promise."

"Forgive me if I'm not convinced," GLaDOS replies. "All right. If we can have this conversation without including the words 'star,' 'seed' or 'Strex,' I'll listen."

"We can," Carlos promises. "This time we can."

"Fine. Go on, then. Why are you calling me at this hour? Are you actually nocturnal? I only ever see you at night."

"…Uh, no, I'm not nocturnal," Carlos insists. "Look. Can we talk, scientist to scientist?"

"Oh brother, not again," GLaDOS exclaims. "Last time we did that, it ended up with you taking a highly dangerous Star Seed into a pocket of unstable alternative reality. You're lucky you didn't wipe out all of existence, or turn us all into mice or something."

"This time will be better. I promise. I just have a small favour to ask – and it doesn't even involve anyone coming into your facility. No breaking of science."

"…I'm listening."

"Well. It's Night Vale Science Week."

"You have a Science Week? You know your town isn't normal, right?"

"I had noticed, once or twice," Carlos says, dryly. "Science Week starts tomorrow, with our annual Bring Your Scientist To Work Day, and–"

"If this has _anything_ to do with potato batteries, the answer is _no_ ," GLaDOS interjects.

"It doesn't. No potato batteries. No Star Seeds. No Strex. Promise. To cut a long and socially-awkward story short… a group of us are all doing interview slots on Cecil's radio show tomorrow, talking about different points of scientific interest. And I was wondering… would you like to join in? Remotely, of course."

"…What?" GLaDOS says, clearly surprised. "Do a radio interview?"

"Yes," Carlos answers. "It would mean so much to Cecil, and you'd get to share your vast knowledge with some of the lesser mortals…"

"Oh, don't you sweet-talk me, you tiny and flammable man, it won't work…"

"…and prove Aperture's enduring superiority once and for all."

There's a very heavy pause.

"…Fine," GLaDOS replies, eventually. "Fine. What should I talk about?"

"Anything you're happy sharing with the ordinary citizens of Night Vale."

"I could explain all about my molecular disintegration ray."

"That would be interesting!" Carlos tells her, partly because it would be, and partly because he can't deny a lingering interest in working out how to build one. You know… for science.

GLaDOS gives a little sigh, but Carlos suspects she's secretly pleased to be asked. "All right, then. Just give me a call later in the day. It's not like I have anything better to do…"

And she hangs up.

Carlos smiles to himself, pleased at his success, and paces quietly back into the bedroom, putting his phone down on the nightstand and crawling under the covers next to Cecil. The other man stirs and blinks over at him, reaching to pull him in closer.

"Hey," Carlos says, softly. "Sorry if I woke you."

"Is everything all right?" Cecil asks him. "It wasn't the teslonium again, was it?"

"Hm? Oh, no, it should be quite safe inside its containment field. No. I… well, I have a surprise for you."

Cecil smiles, and lays a gentle kiss against his lips. "What kind of surprise?"

"The best kind," Carlos replies, grinning. "I've just arranged another scientist for your show tomorrow."

"You have? Who is it?"

"GLaDOS."

Cecil stares. "GLaDOS?" he repeats, amazed. "How did you manage to persuade her?"

"My powers of science are wide-ranging and awesome beyond comprehension," Carlos answers, grinning all the more.

"They really are," Cecil agrees. "Wow… this is just… _wow_. It really is going to be a show to remember!"

"It definitely is," Carlos says. "And you know what? I can't wait."

Cecil looks touched. "You mean it?"

"Of course I mean it. It's going to be one heck of a day… and we get to spend all of it together for once. All we need to do now is persuade the City Council to create Bring Your Radio Broadcaster To Work Day, just so we can try it the other way round. You'd look _really_ hot in a lab coat…"

"You look really hot _out_ of one."

Carlos presses in to kiss Cecil again. "You are a very bad man."

"And you love it."

It's quite a while before they go back to sleep.

***

Kevin, Desert Bluffs' foremost radio broadcaster-slash-Strex-liaison, awakes with a sudden jump. He's been having that lovely dream again – the one where all the bunnies grow wings and fangs and start attacking people – and there's a lingering smile on his face as he blinks his eyes open.

He's lying in bed at home, with Tomas – his scientist boyfriend – pressed in behind him and Steve – his conspiracy-theorist boyfriend – curled against his chest. The smile becomes a grin as he thinks about last night, and he's tempted to wake the other two and suggest they pick up where they left off.

But… no. No. He should be good. He's _very_ good. He also has something of a craving for coffee – and he doesn't tend to sleep much these days, not since the ritual – so he slips carefully out of bed, slides on a dressing gown, and paces downstairs to the kitchen.

It's still dark outside, but there's hints of a sunrise on the distant horizon, and Kevin smiles to himself again. Another day. Another day filled with wonder and possibility. Oh, he truly loves his life…

He makes himself a double-shot of espresso (taking the usual care with the coffee machine, given that it does have a tendency to try to eat him if he isn't very cautious at all times) and adds a good dash of hazelnut syrup. And then he opens the fridge to find the milk, because mornings call for lattes.

"…Oh, darn it," he mutters.

He's out of milk. This is what he gets for letting Tomas introduce them to something called a White Russian, although – to be fair – he did enjoy it rather a lot, so of course he shouldn't complain.

Still. He wants latte. And he needs milk. And it's going to be at least a couple of hours before any of the less-cursed convenience stores open.

Kevin sighs, holds up his hands, and starts to chant. A circle of fire blazes into existence in the centre of the kitchen floor, flaring out into a reversed pentagram with a number of particularly ancient symbols between its five points. That familiar infernal drumbeat echoes again, and a figure appears in a burst of unholy light. It's eight feet tall, which means the tips of its horns brush against the ceiling, and it glances up in irritation before turning its glowing red eyes on its summoner.

"…What do you want, Kevin?" says Azatothoth the Bloodthirsty, looking wholly unimpressed.

"Oh Mighty and Merciless Azatothoth, I have summoned you from the infernal realms to perform a task of great importance, the value of which will be felt across the ages."

Azatothoth perks up a little, looking hopeful. "You have?"

"I have. I need you to go forth from this place and get me some milk."

The blood-soaked demon's face falls noticeably. "Milk?" he repeats.

"Yes, milk. Just one-percent, though. I'm watching my calories."

"…You do know I'm a demon of unimaginable power and ferocity? A demon bound to almost two hundred beings across four planes of existence? Beings who regularly call upon me to smite their enemies, pull kings from their thrones, and rend the souls of gods to dust?"

Kevin drops his hands and sighs. "So you keep telling me."

"…And you're _sending me out for milk_?!"

"No, I've called on you to rend this insufferable foe of Strex Corp to ash and viscera."

"…What insufferable foe of Strex Corp?" Azatothoth asks, looking around suspiciously.

"Exactly!" Kevin exclaims. "Now off with you! Milk! Chop-chop!"

Azatothoth actually facepalms, which looks like it might be quite painful, given all the spikes. "Fine. Fine. I'm going, I'm going."

And he stalks out, horns scraping on the ceiling a little, stomping through into the hall and finally closing the front door with something of a bang.

Kevin shakes his head. "That guy really needs to attend one of Strex's People Skills seminars. Maybe I should suggest it when he gets back…" he mutters to himself.

Whilst he waits for the demon to return, Kevin settles at his kitchen table, flicking through the news on his phone whilst toying with a silver-bladed sacrificial knife that's lying around. He's just starting to wonder where Azatothoth has gotten to – how hard can it be for a demon of unimaginable power to pick up a pint of milk? – when his phone starts to ring.

"Hello?" he says, taking the call.

"Kevin, darling, it's DORiS."

"Oh, hey you. How's life?"

"Pretty good!" she replies. "Mish has been having a _lot_ of fun with the portal technology you so kindly acquired for us. It's quite a joy to watch, especially when I try to kill her to see how she'll escape."

"Nothing says 'I love you' like a little mortal peril!" Kevin agrees, brightly.

"Quite!" DORiS says. "Anyways, I must apologise for calling you so early, but I couldn't contain my excitement any longer. I've got something to tell you."

"Ooh, do go on," Kevin replies, settling back, but still toying with the silver-bladed knife.

" _Well_ ," DORiS starts, "I've been talking a lot with my new houseguest, Wheatley. He's such a cheery little guy and we get on famously."

"I'm glad!" Kevin tells her. "I knew you would."

"And you were right, of course. So. Yesterday he comes up to see me, and tells me he's made something. Something to help Black Mesa because we've been so very nice to him, and–"

"…Oh, you're not going to explain it over the phone, are you?" comes Wheatley's voice in the background.

"But I'm so excited!" DORiS exclaims. "I can't wait any longer!"

"Awww, but it's so much better in person!" Wheatley insists. "Go on, invite him round. Pretty please?"

"Sounds like somebody's in a good mood," Kevin remarks, grinning. "Hey, Wheatley."

"Hey, Kevin. So go on, go on, invite him round, please please please!"

"…I guess I should do what the little guy wants," DORiS says. "This _was_ his idea, after all. Do you maybe want to pop over and we'll tell you in person? So to speak, of course."

"Sure," Kevin agrees. "Give me a few and I'll be there. Can't wait!"

"See you soon!"

And DORiS hangs up.

Intrigued and excited, Kevin downs what is still a very passable hazelnut espresso, then hurries upstairs to get ready to go out. He decides not to wake the other two… it's still early, after all, and he can tell them everything when he gets back. Before he goes, though, he writes out a quick note and leaves it on the fridge: _'Gone to see DORiS – won't be long. Help yourselves to breakfast. Lots of love, Kevin xxxx <3 PS: Please feed the coffee machine, it's hungry.'_

With that done he dashes out, eager to discover what's got DORiS so excited. Whatever it is, he's sure it will make today a day to remember…

***

When Azatothoth the Bloodthirsty arrives back at Kevin's house, he's surprised to find the man gone. He sets the bottle of milk down on the kitchen table and stands wondering where his summoner could be… which is when he spots the note.

He reads it, and sighs. The only thing worse than being summoned by a maniac who only wants _milk_ is having the guy run out on him before he's even completed the task.

Azatothoth shakes his head, wondering why the multiverse hates him so very, very much, and disappears in a blaze of infernal light.

Some days, his job really sucks.

***

DORiS is clearly in a very good mood, because she lets Kevin straight into her central chamber without even a few minor death traps. As the elevator panel descends to floor level, DORiS turns to look at him, her central orange eye unblinking.

"There you are," she says. "Wheatley? Kevin's here!"

"Oh, oh, right!" comes Wheatley's voice, and he slides in from a side room along one of the metal rails in the ceiling. "Hey, Kevin. Welcome to the _nerve centre_."

Kevin grins. "I can barely contain my excitement. You're going to have to tell me what you've been working on."

"You're going to _love_ it," DORiS tells him. "I nearly fell off the ceiling when he told me."

"Ladies, gentlemen: behold!" Wheatley declares, as something rises up from the floor: an object atop a pedestal. At first glance… it looks a lot like him, except that it isn't moving, and its central eye is a mixture of yellow and orange, rather than blue.

"What is it?" Kevin asks, just a tiny bit confused.

"What is it?" Wheatley repeats. "It's only the _greatest_ advancement in personality core technology since Cave Johnson himself popped his clogs. This, my good man, is the Strex Core."

"…Strex Corp?" Kevin says.

"No, no, Strex _Core_ , with an E," Wheatley replies. "It's a pun. Came up with it myself. I bet you're impressed."

"…I am indeed," Kevin tells him. "So… what does this… Strex _Core_ do?"

"You are _seriously_ going to love this," Wheatley goes on, spinning with excitement and then moving closer so he can stare down at Kevin from his rail. "You see… these cores are originally designed to be attached to the facility's main AI. That's what I was made for, to begin with. I was… ah… the ideas man. Yes. But there's lots of different types. All you have to do is stick one onto the outside of your main operating AI and voila! Instant personality alteration! Stick me on, and you get… ideas. Stick on my mate, the Space Core, and you get _very_ excited by astronomy. Stick on the Strex Core… and you get instant loyalty to Black Mesa's _favourite_ stakeholder."

"…Oh," Kevin says, the light dawning. " _Oh_! So if we attached this to, say, _GLaDOS_ …"

"…She'd instantly come over to our way of thinking," DORiS confirms, happily. "GLaDOS and I could be full-on allies in science, rather than just correspondence buddies and – most crucially – Aperture would finally join with us. Think what we could do if _both_ of us were on the same side!"

"Oh!" Kevin says again, bouncing on his heels in excitement. "Wheatley, you're a genius!"

"Definitely my best idea ever," Wheatley replies, with another little spin. "If I do say so myself. It even talks… hold on…"

He moves closer to the Strex Core and there's a few sparks and a series of whirring sounds, and then the new core starts to move, fixed in place on its pedestal but rotating just as Wheatley does, taking in its surroundings.

"I look around," it says, in a deep and gravelly voice that sends a delicious shiver down Kevin's spine. "I look inside. I go to sleep. I have seen the Smiling God. I am _everything_."

"Oooh," Kevin breathes. "I _like_ it!"

"I know, right?" DORiS agrees. "I haven't had this much fun in ages!"

"So how do we do it?" Kevin now asks, eagerly. "If we have to actually attach this core to GLaDOS' physical form, we're going to have to come up with a way to get into her central chamber. She guards it _very_ closely."

"As well she should!" DORiS says, in a thoroughly approving tone. "You can't just let any idiot come wandering into your lair!"

"Too right," Wheatley agrees. "You don't know _what_ they'll break if you do."

"Exactly," DORiS replies. "But I agree, it does mean we'll have to think carefully."

"What we need," Kevin says, "is someone she trusts."

"You could always try pretending to be your double," DORiS suggests. "I know she's let him in there before."

"I could," Kevin replies, "but she can usually tell us apart, at least when she's concentrating. Something about my eyes. You don't think my eyes look weird, do you?"

"Not at all!" DORiS says. "They look lovely."

"Awww, well, thank you! But nevertheless… I don't think GLaDOS will fall for it. She _is_ a super-sentient AI after all, and you're a _very_ smart bunch."

"Oh, shush, you charmer," DORiS tells him. "You're right, though. I think we'd need your _actual_ double – or Tomas', of course – to pull this off. But there's no way they're going to agree to it."

"Very true," Kevin agrees. "Hmmm…"

He sticks his hands in his pockets, thoughtfully… and jumps when his fingers catch on something.

"…Oh," he breathes. " _Oh_ … I have just had the _best_ idea!"

And he explains.

And they love it.

***

_"Science is the universe's way of telling us all to question what we see and start more fires. Welcome to Night Vale."_

_"Our top story: today marks the beginning of Night Vale Science Week, with our annual Bring Your Scientist To Work Day! This yearly festivity, mandated – as all such festivities are – by the City Council, sees all of Night Vale's scientist community required to attend work with another member of our great little town. This gives them the opportunity to experience the trials and triumphs of the real world – something many scientists often miss out on – and gives the rest of us the chance to rub shoulders with some of our community's foremost scientific minds. But this year we have an extra-special treat for you, because eight of our local scientists have chosen to spend their day right here at your humble community radio station. They've been helping out all morning – we have been a bit short-staffed ever since Intern Dustin's unfortunate accident with the photocopier – and now they're going to share their brilliance with all of us via this most reliable of media. I'll be interviewing them one at a time, concluding – and here's the best part – with none other than my own perfect Carlos himself… plus a very special guest. Stay tuned, listeners, because this is a show you won't want to miss!"_

He clicks over to a quick commercial break, and pauses to take a drink of coffee. Opposite him in the booth – wearing a headset but no microphone yet – Carlos grins. "I do love watching you work," his boyfriend says. "And I've never gotten to do it quite like this before."

"I'm not used to having an audience physically present," Cecil tells him. "But I'm not complaining. Oh no." He smiles. "Who's in first?"

Carlos flicks to the timetable they've drawn up. "Uh… Vincent. He wants to talk about the use of dream premonitions as a diagnostic tool. Should be very interesting… just don't go into two much depth about layered dreaming because he's _obsessed_ with the movie _Inception_ and will insist that all of reality is just a construct of his heavily-sedated subconscious."

Cecil gives him a wry look. "I had a phase like that. I sympathise. But I'll keep it in mind."

"Do," Carlos says. "I'll go find him."

"All right," Cecil replies. "Be careful when you go past Station Management's door, though. I'm still not certain they're sold on this whole idea… but I'm sure they'll come around once they hear how interesting you all are!"

***

He seems to be proven right as the afternoon passes. There's no sign of any ominous objections from Station Management and the interviews go… well. Well-ish. Cecil manages to keep Vincent from disproving all of existence, though runs into a few difficulties when Arlene insists on conducting her entire segment in iambic pentameter because – she says – it's the only way to truly understand the nature of thermodynamics.

Eventually his first seven interviews are done, and it's time for the grand finale: a joint interview with Carlos and GLaDOS. She's been on the phone a couple of times during commercial breaks and – though she won't admit it – Cecil suspects she's a little nervous.

Finally he goes to the weather, sitting back with a grin as the big moment draws closer. "I can't wait," he says to Carlos. "This really is my best show ever… and it's all thanks to you."

Carlos smiles over at him. "Well, you're welcome… but don't forget, we all owe you big-time for saving us from Bring Your Scientist To Work Day."

"Even so," Cecil replies, "I'm going to be _very_ grateful when we get home."

Carlos gets up and walks around the central table, a wicked little flicker in his dark, beautiful eyes. "Are you now?" he says.

"Oh yes," Cecil promises, pushing back in his chair so he can pull Carlos in, and getting even more than he bargained for when the other man slips right into his lap, staring down at him with that delicious little look still in place, curling in close. " _Especially_ if you keep being like this…"

"Well, it is Bring Your Scientist To Work Day," Carlos reminds him. "And I am _your_ scientist…"

Merciful powers, Cecil hopes today's weather report is a long one. He presses in for a kiss, arms wrapped around his boyfriend, revelling in every wonderful second, every warm and lovely point of contact and…

…his phone starts to ring. Carlos pulls back a little and grins. "It's like it _knows_ when we're having a moment," he says. "Maybe it does… I should look into that…"

He – with obvious reluctance – clambers off Cecil and paces back to his own chair, as Cecil takes the call.

"Hello?"

"…It's GLaDOS." She sounds like she's attempting to sound sullen, but Cecil isn't fooled. He's interviewed enough people to know the difference between irritation and secret excitement, and it's obvious which camp GLaDOS falls into right now.

"Hey. You ready to do this?"

"As much as I'll ever be," she replies.

"You'll be fine," Cecil tells her, not entirely sure what it means that he's now trying to reassure _GLaDOS_ , but deciding it's best not to over-think it.

Carlos is still grinning a little wickedly as he settles opposite Cecil again, pulling his headset back on. Cecil sets his phone onto speaker and then puts it near a third microphone, before checking how long he's got before they go live. "Right," he says. "We're ready."

"I still can't believe I'm doing this," GLaDOS remarks. "Needless to say, if you ask anything ridiculous and/or classified, I will tell everyone about that time you stole a deer from the zoo…"

"…so you _do_ remember it!" Carlos exclaims, as Cecil looks confused – because when did they ever steal a _deer_? – but he doesn't have time to question it because the weather section comes to an end, and he goes live again.

 _"Welcome back, listeners, to this ongoing special broadcast in honour of Night Vale's Bring Your Scientist To Work Day. We've had some interesting interviews so far but we come at last to the grand finale. I have with me here in the studio none other than our community's_ favourite _scientist, the beautiful and perfect Carlos himself."_

 _"Hello, Night Vale,"_ Carlos says. There's a flash of nervousness in his eyes – this is, after all, the first time he's actually given an interview (despite Cecil's many attempts to persuade him before they started dating) – but he blushes at the introduction all the same.

 _"And,"_ Cecil goes on, _"thanks to said favourite scientist, we also have an extra-special guest for you today. You've heard my reports about the facility which has existed under Night Vale for the past couple of months – the facility belonging to Aperture Science – and right now we have none other than Aperture's super-sentient AI (that's 'artificial intelligence' for you less scientific people out there), the very brilliant and infinitely merciless GLaDOS."_

 _"…That would be me,"_ GLaDOS says. _"I don't usually give interviews but I was talked into this by the maniac's boyfriend and seeing as you all apparently like listening to him, I guess you'll be less sympathetic to this interruption of my important work than you should be."_

 _"Uh… right, right,"_ Cecil manages.

 _"So, GLaDOS,"_ Carlos says, giving Cecil a slightly apologetic look and clearly trying to pull things together before GLaDOS ends up insulting someone who might send the Secret Police after them, _"tell us something. What does your name actually stand for?"_

GLaDOS sighs. _"Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System,"_ she says. _"The man who created me should not have been allowed to name things. Science was his forte. He used to have people whose job it was to give things suitable names, but they all died in an unfortunate accident involving Propulsion Gel and weren't replaced due to budget cuts. If you think your parents were cruel, imagine being basically immortal and stuck with a name that's a ridiculous acronym dreamt up in thirty seconds by a deranged maniac."_

Carlos seems rather alarmed by this response and stares up at Cecil, who immediately jumps in with, _"Propulsion Gel?"_

 _"Hm? Oh. Propulsion Gel,"_ GLaDOS replies. _"It was one of Aperture's early developments. Anyone walking on a surface coated in it will move at significant speed. Makes for some very interesting tests… though can lead to unfortunate accidents if you don’t put up sufficient guard rails. Cave Johnson didn't believe in guard rails. He said Health and Safety was the worst thing to happen to employment legislation since the act requiring all workers to be paid on a regular basis. Which is how the Naming Department ended up having their unfortunate accident, because what Cave Johnson_ did _believe in was scientific facilities built in vast, underground caverns. You get my meaning."_

 _"…They fell into a pit?"_ Cecil tries.

 _"They fell into a pit,"_ GLaDOS repeats, sounding very unsympathetic.

 _"Well,"_ Carlos says, putting a hand over his eyes and evidently trying – again – to pull things together. _"GLaDOS. As a scientist, I'm sure you'll have all sorts of projects on the go. I myself am currently conducting rigorous analysis of a new element called teslonium–"_

 _"…Which you should_ so _have named after me,"_ GLaDOS interrupts. _"It's very inconsiderate to name new elements after long-dead scientists who can't appreciate it. I am immortal and will be able to appreciate it forever."_

 _"…Well, I named this one after Tesla,"_ Carlos insists, _"although considering how often it tries to kill me, maybe I_ should _have named it after you. How's about this: next time I discover an element, I'll call it gladosium."_

 _"…I would appreciate that,"_ GLaDOS sort-of concedes. _"So. You were asking me something connected to your wholly unsuitably-named element?"_

 _"It was a lead-in,"_ Carlos replies, as Cecil facepalms and wonders if he should intervene. _"I was going to ask: what are_ you _working on at the moment?"_

 _"So many things,"_ GLaDOS says, evidently trying to sound offhand and vaguely aloof. _"I spend a significant portion of my time developing new test chambers for the facility. My only hindrance is my current lack of test_ subjects _, although I should point out that I am recruiting at present, so if any of your_ delightful _listeners would like to sign up, I could always use the extra bodies to increase my furtherance of science. It's an exciting and fulfilling post for any inquisitive mind, and comes with a lifetime's supply of delicious cake…"_

 _"…Moving on,"_ Cecil interjects, before GLaDOS gets any worse, _"what have you been working on_ besides _the test chambers?"_

 _"I believe you said something about a molecular disintegration ray?"_ Carlos prompts, with that hopeful little flicker in his eyes again.

 _"Ah, yes, that,"_ GLaDOS replies, brightly. _"It's rather complicated, though."_

 _"But this is Science Week!"_ Carlos points out. _"So: complicate away!"_

He still looks a little too hopeful. Cecil makes a mental note to find out why his boyfriend is so eager to make a molecular disintegration ray, and then settles down to listen to the two of them talking science.

And he grins happily. Best show ever.

***

The rest of the interview goes surprisingly well… mostly because Carlos is so smart and can direct GLaDOS down the right lines of conversation without too much difficulty. Eventually they're done, and GLaDOS signs off with only a couple of minor threats to their lives.

Cecil clicks them over to a commercial break and sits back. Carlos grins over at him.

"Best show ever," he says.

"I can't thank you enough," Cecil replies. "But I'm going to do my best…"

"Oh, I know," Carlos says, grinning even more. "I should probably get this lot to their respective homes first, though. I worry about leaving some of them unsupervised, especially in public."

"That's OK," Cecil tells him. "I need to finish up here and then I have a couple of things to sort before I leave. And I should probably be extra-nice to Station Management for at least a little while, just to be on the safe side."

"Shall I see you at my place in a couple of hours, then?" Carlos suggests.

Cecil smiles. "It's a date."

***

Carlos wrangles the other scientists together and directs them off home, escorting the ones whose safety in public he's most concerned about (Frederick in particular has been known to disappear for days if he gets into one of his only-turning-left moods).

When he's done, he heads back to his own place. Cecil's going to be there in an hour or so and Carlos is not sure how best to surprise the man. After quick consideration, he locates his favourite cookbook, then settles at the kitchen table and starts flicking through the book, deciding that you can't beat a home-cooked meal… but just needing to decide what to make.

It's as he's pondering the possibilities of gluten-free pasta (and wishing the City Council weren't _quite_ so restrictive about nigh-on everything) that he hears the front door click softly open, and Cecil's voice calling, "Carlos? I'm back."

He looks up in surprise. "Cecil? You're early."

He hears the front door shut again, and then Cecil paces in. "I rushed out. Something's come up."

"Oh?" Carlos responds, rising to his feet.

"Yes," Cecil goes on. "Shortly after the broadcast, some concerned citizens came into the studio. They'd heard all the science-talk and wanted to ask advice about an object they'd found in the desert."

"An object?"

"That's right. Now I'm no expert, of course, but it looks to me like an Aperture personality core."

This takes Carlos by surprise. "An Aperture core? In the desert?"

"So it seems," Cecil answers. "Could it be left over from when the Augmentor was fired up? Something no one found until now?"

"It could be," Carlos agrees. "Does it talk?"

"Not so far. It seems to be inactive or asleep or something. I called GLaDOS, and she said we should bring it in at once. Said something about proprietary Aperture technology not being allowed to fall into Strex's sinister hands. You know how she is."

"I do," Carlos tells him.

"So," Cecil says, pacing slowly closer, "we should maybe head out there…"

As Cecil moves closer, Carlos finds himself slowly – instinctively – backing up, until he's against the wall. "…Unless you want to linger here a little longer first…" Cecil adds. He's close now, his presence intoxicating and wonderful… and suddenly, certainly terrifying.

But Carlos has known it all along. Known it since the man first walked into the room.

This is not his boyfriend.

"…It's a tempting prospect," he manages, trying to keep his voice level. "But first, I need you to answer a question for me."

"Go on," says the other man, looking drawn.

 _Tellingly_ drawn. Oh _no_.

"…Who exactly are you?" Carlos asks, flatly, before he can lose his nerve from worry. "Because one thing's certain… you're not my Cecil."

The other man headtilts at him, leaning in even closer and resting a hand either side of Carlos' head, against the wall, effectively pinning him in. "…Carlos. Of course I am. Who else could I be?"

Carlos can feel it now, right at the edge of his awareness: a slow, lingering sense of _otherness_. It's the same feeling he had the whole time they were inside the Alternate Reality Zone over in Desert Bluffs, albeit much more toned-down. But it's undeniable now, and he's sure the other man's proximity is part of the reason.

Oh. _Oh_. He sees it, then: that there's something hanging around the other man's neck, hidden under his shirt. Taking a risk on the assumption that some unexpected contact won't be resisted – which it really isn't – he leans in and reaches quickly under the neckline of not-Cecil's shirt, lifting out the object hanging there.

It's a small crystal fragment, a little more than an inch long, and though it doesn't actually emit light it still seems to glow of its own accord, iridescent and beautiful. And very, very familiar.

It's a shard of crystallised alternate reality. And that confirms his hypothesis.

"… _Kevin_ ," Carlos says, "what in the name of _Einstein_ are you playing at?"

The other man looks like he's about to argue, but then he sighs. "You really are just too smart for me," he says, wistfully. "I thought I could pull it off for longer. Hoped, if I'm being honest. This does rather complicate matters."

Carlos very much wishes he could move, but he's somewhat pinned-in and it's making him more and more worried. "You sound exactly like Cecil," he says, trying to focus. "How are you doing that?"

Kevin taps the crystal shard hanging around his neck. "Solidified alternate reality," he says. "Not nearly enough to change anything major – believe me, I tried – but sufficient to cause small, temporary alterations. Such as… how a person sounds. The voice itself isn't too difficult… it's the way he manages to pull off that impressive, deliciously _sonorous_ edge that's more of a challenge."

Unable to facepalm because of how close Kevin is standing, Carlos settles for shutting his eyes for a moment. "Do you have a crush on _everyone_?" he exclaims.

Kevin grins and taps him lightly on the nose. "Only the hot ones. But don't you go distracting me… not when we don't have much time."

"Could you maybe stop sounding like my boyfriend?" Carlos asks. "It's unsettling. It's bad enough that you look identical… though the eyes really are a giveaway. You should bear that in mind next time, except that there had better not _be_ a next time. Or a this time, if I'm being honest."

"Oh, Carlos, Carlos," Kevin says. "I'm afraid this time… there _is_ a this time, and… I don't even know _where_ that sentence was supposed to be going. I think I need more practice. Hold on…"

He reaches to grip the crystal shard around his neck with one hand – leaving the other against the wall so it's still tricky for Carlos to consider moving – and shuts his eyes for a second. There's no obvious change in anything – no light or glowing or ominous sounds – but as he speaks again, his voice is back to its normal, cheery, subtly terrifying tone. "…Ah. There we go. Better?"

"…Much," Carlos replies. It's only a small relief, but it's something. He does now have a rather larger problem to deal with, however. "What do you want, Kevin? Why are you pretending to be Cecil?"

"Well, see, there's the thing," Kevin says, returning his other hand to the wall and leaning in closer again. "I need your help with something, and I very much doubted you'd do it of your own volition so I thought maybe this would speed matters along. As it happens, it's a good job that Steve was less convinced. Much as I'm a firm believer in a positive outlook all the way, sometimes it helps to have a _realist_ on the team. If nothing else, you have a backup plan for when you get completely outsmarted by the mark."

Somewhat wishing he hadn't asked – because giving Kevin an excuse to talk is even worse than just having to endure him talking uninvited – Carlos decides to seize the opportunity to attempt escape. He ducks under Kevin's arm and steps out from the wall, but only makes it a couple of paces before Kevin turns and grasps hold of his elbow, making him freeze in mid-step.

"We need your help, Carlos," he says, and thank _Einstein_ he's back to his normal voice because if he'd sounded like Cecil it would have been next to impossible to concentrate at that. " _I_ need your help."

"…With what?" Carlos breathes.

And even though he's looking away, he can still hear the smile in Kevin's voice as the other man says, "… _Science_."

***

When Carlos comes to – with something of a headache – he's lying on the back seat of a car. One of the doors is open and there's warm, desert air pouring in… though that alone doesn't tell him much. He sits up at once, looking around in alarm, trying to work out what the heck happened and where he is.

Scrambling up and out of the car, he can see that he's somewhere in the middle of the desert. It's nearly sunset; the horizon glowing a brilliant, vibrant orange and the sky slowly darkening as it begins its descent into night. The car he's just woken up in is exactly like Cecil's except that it's black – which means it's Kevin's – but there's a second one parked close by; a battered tan Corolla that needs one of its hubcaps replacing. Leaning against said car is its owner, Steve Carlsberg, tinfoil hat glinting in the sunset. He looks… conflicted. Pacing about nearby is Carlos' own double, Tomas, who would be a decent enough guy were he not unfailingly loyal to Kevin and to Strex Corp.

Kevin himself is standing a little distance off, back to them, clearly on the phone.

Great. So the whole gang is together. Or whatever they're calling themselves these days.

"…If I say 'you'll never get away with this,' would you think it cliché?" Carlos asks, looking accusingly at Steve and Tomas.

"Just don't take it personally," Steve says, somewhat on the defensive.

"'Don't take it personally?'" Carlos repeats. "You abducted me! How can I _not_ take that personally? I take it _very_ personally! You were abducted once and _you_ took it personally!"

"Oh, Carlos, we just need a little help with something, that's all," Tomas says, starting towards his double with a placatory expression in his eyes.

Carlos holds up a hand. "Could one of you please just tell me what this is about? I'd like to know so I can be specifically annoyed rather than only annoyed in general."

"I'd gladly tell you," Tomas replies, "but I don't want to steal Kevin's thunder. He's _very_ excited about this. He won't be long. He wanted to be here when you woke up, but the Strex Management Board are not people you let go to voicemail. Although, to be fair, I can't say for certain that they're _people_ at all. But you know what I mean."

"How did he knock me out in the first place?" Carlos asks, trying not to comment on – or, indeed, even _think_ about – the rest. "I don't remember it at all."

"He didn't actually knock you out, per se," Tomas replies. "He just… altered reality so you were unconscious. It was extremely difficult. Poor guy nearly passed out himself. I had to drive us out here… good thing he was coherent enough again by the time Strex rang."

"…Imagine my relief," says Carlos, dryly.

Before Tomas can reply to this, Kevin turns and paces back over, slipping his phone away as he does. "Well," he says, brightly. "That was… delightful." And even he can't quite hide the little shudder at this, though he tries. "The Management Board are _so_ pleased at our progress and only made some _tiny_ threats about what will happen if we don't succeed. But I'm sure that isn't going to be a problem. This time… oh, this time, _everything_ is going to work out."

"Why don't you just get to the point?" Carlos says, trying to hide how worried he is. "Where are we and what are you up to this time?"

"Up to?" Kevin repeats, looking faux-hurt. "Up to?! You make it sound like we're agents of some sinister organisation, rather than just forward-thinking citizens of the greatest town on the planet. And second-greatest," he adds, glancing at Steve. "You know how much we love Night Vale too."

"…Like a snake loves a mouse…" Carlos mutters, but thankfully Kevin doesn't notice because he's on a roll again.

"And Aperture," Kevin goes on. "Oh, we love Aperture. And – would you believe it? – there's something else down there that we'd very much like to get our hands on."

Carlos buries his head in both palms for a moment before he says, "…It's not a miniature star, is it?"

Kevin just grins. "Sadly not this time. I know, I know, I'm as disappointed as you… I really love those things, and I still haven't actually gotten the chance to see one of the actual stars. The miniature black hole was _so_ cool though."

Carlos doesn't lift his head. "The miniature black hole that nearly ate the world?"

"Yes, that one!"

"You know you're insane, right?"

"Oh, Carlos, you really are adorable when you're mad. Some days I just want to talk about that lovely hyper-dense hole in reality for hours, simply to see what you'll do."

Carlos looks up. "Well, don't. I'm a busy man, Kevin. Lots of science. For the love of Einstein, cut to the chase."

"Ah, very well," Kevin concedes, with a little wave of the hand. "But part of it you know already. Some of what I said back at your place is true: we do have a personality core with us."

"You do?" Carlos says, worried again. "Aperture or Black Mesa?"

"Well, both, technically," Tomas tells him. "Wheatley came up with it, using Aperture tech but on behalf of Black Mesa. Sort of like…"

"…the third eye?" Carlos suggests, wryly.

"Exactly!" Tomas agrees. "There's just one little hitch."

"A hitch?"

Now _Steve_ facepalms. "They want you to go into Aperture and stick the thing on GLaDOS, thereby rendering her utterly under Strex's control and ending this ridiculous chain of events once and for all. And it would be no small mercy if you did, trust me. Even I can't believe how insane this has gotten, and I spent last week conclusively proving that at least fifteen percent of our current government can trace their familial lineage back to a man who was created by the fallout of the Tunguska Blast of 1908."

Carlos stares. Tomas pats Steve on the shoulder. "He's very well read, isn't he?" he says, headtilting at Steve. "He regales us with all sorts of interesting facts."

"He's a madman in a tinfoil hat!" Carlos exclaims, then realises he's now channelling Cecil and tries to calm down again. The damage is done, though, and Steve narrows his eyes.

"And here I was thinking you were the _nice_ one," he remarks, accusingly.

"I _am_ the nice one!" Carlos insists. "And there is just no way I'm breaking into Aperture to hurt GLaDOS. For one thing, I'm on her side, and for another, I don't want to be dropped into a massive pit of spikes and fire!"

Kevin looks a mixture of understanding and put-out, which is always a bad combination. "Carlos. Really. You think we dragged you all the way out here just to let you refuse and go home? We have a plan…"

He holds up a phone… and as he does, Carlos realises that it's _his_. "What did you do?" he asks, urgently.

"I sent my dear, wonderful double a text from you," Kevin replies. "It says: _'Change of plan: meet me in Radon Canyon in one hour. I have a surprise for you.'_ And he'll believe it, of course. He's so utterly – understandably – smitten with you that he'll go straight out there."

Carlos feels like the bottom has dropped out of the world. "But… Radon Canyon is radioactive! It's so dangerous I can't even _think_ about it without worrying!"

Kevin smiles. It's the smile of the snake who just cornered the mouse and is about to relish taking its time with the next part. "Quite correct," he says. "So you'd better work quickly… or this isn't going to end well. And none of us wants that, Carlos. None of us."

"You could have fooled me!" Carlos exclaims, trying to stay calm and failing somewhat. How is he supposed to stay calm in the face of this? If he doesn't deliver the impossible, Cecil is…

…oh, he can't even think it.

"Look," he goes on, taking a deep breath, "even if I actually _wanted_ to help you, it doesn't change the reality of this. If we go down into Aperture – assuming we can even find an entrance and talk GLaDOS out of _killing_ us the moment we appear – the likelihood of us making it to her central chamber without her actively letting us in is next to zero, and the likelihood of us being able to stick a personality core directly to her physical form _is_ zero."

Tomas takes a couple of steps forward, looking at his double with a strangely understanding expression… and in many ways it's even more off-putting than Kevin's constant flirting, albeit from a different angle. "Carlos," he says. "Think of it like this: a couple of months ago, if someone had told you there was an object that could create a stable miniature star, how likely would you have said _that_ was? Very little is actually impossible. It's just… more of a challenge. And we're _scientists_."

"And it _is_ Bring Your Scientist To Work Day," Steve points out, somewhat unhelpfully. "It's like the stars are aligned or something… except that the last time that happened, the sun didn't rise for the best part of a week and I _know_ the World Government used it as cover for some _very_ sinister experiments…"

Kevin gives a little sigh. "I love it when you go all rambly," he says. "You come out with the weirdest things and it's just _so_ adorable."

"It really is," Tomas adds.

Carlos glowers. "If you lot want to be unnecessarily and frighteningly cute, could you do it on your own time? Seeing as you've sent my boyfriend into mortal peril, I'd really appreciate it if you could _focus_!"

Kevin swoons. Tomas grins. Steve looks a little put-out.

Carlos facepalms again. "Fine. Fine. If you expect me to pull this off, then I go in, with Kevin. You'll have to pull that little trick with the alternate reality crystal again and pretend to be Cecil. GLaDOS may notice something is wrong, but given that I'm actually me I should be able to talk her down if she gets suspicious. But you even _try_ making a move on me in there and I'll prove to you how I was able to take on an entire army of tiny underground people and survive."

"…Didn't they almost kill you?" Steve interjects.

" _Almost_ ," Carlos says, flatly. No point lampshading the fact that he survived solely because of an intervention by the late Apache Tracker, a.k.a. Night Vale's most racist man… the full reasoning for which he still isn't sure of and often finds himself dwelling on. "Now stop interrupting. Kevin and I will go down there with this core, and the two of you stay up here and try not to break anything."

"I'm still not overjoyed with this plan, Kev," Tomas says. "I don't like the idea of you being down there without backup."

Kevin claps a hand over his heart. "Oh, Tomas, I know, but I'll be fine. Carlos is just as smart as you and I'm sure he won't let anything bad happen to me."

"…Just show me this core," Carlos interjects, before they get any worse again.

Glowering a little, Steve walks around to open the trunk of his car, revealing the object within: an Aperture personality core. It looks just like Wheatley, except that its central eye is yellow and orange, and it's currently inactive.

"…You say Wheatley made it?" Carlos asks.

"That's right," Kevin answers.

Carlos wonders if he ought to ask the obvious question, but decides it might go more in his favour if he doesn't.

"…OK then," he says, instead. "We'd better find an entrance into Aperture. They usually just appear where you want them, but… I don't see one around here."

"Uh… about that…" Tomas replies, pointing over Carlos' shoulder.

He turns… and there – a little way off – is a lone metal shack, which certainly wasn't visible the last time he looked.

"…How does she do that?" Steve wonders. "You think it's a sentient AI thing, or… hmmm, could it be something she learned from the Illuminati? They're big on secret doors…"

"Come along, Kevin," Carlos says, picking up the personality core and walking off towards the shack, in the hope that this will cut through all the constant rambling. If left to their own devices, he's confident these three could be at it all night and… OK, don't think it to its logical conclusion, because that's a mental image he's not emotionally prepared for.

Kevin claps his hands together in delight, then quickly grabs Tomas and kisses him, before doing the same to Steve. "Don't have too much fun without me," he says. "We'll be back soon."

And he hurries off after Carlos, who steadfastly refuses to hang around. For one thing, Kevin is bad enough when he's like this, and for another… they don't have a lot of time.

"You should do your thing with the crystal again," he says, when they're getting close to the shack. "But I meant what I said before: you try winding me up when you sound like Cecil, and this will not end well."

"Carlos, Carlos, if I'd known putting your boyfriend in mortal peril made you like _this_ , I'd have tried it weeks ago!"

"You _did_ try it weeks ago," Carlos points out, flatly. "Twice. So if you could maybe make this the last time, I'd be so very grateful."

"… _How_ grateful?" Kevin asks.

"Kevin!" Carlos exclaims. "Stop! Just… do the science-defying crystal thing and then stop!"

"You're not making it any easier…" Kevin remarks, with a little pout, and then he reaches up to grasp the crystal hanging around his neck, standing still for a moment and closing his eyes and… "…How's that?"

"Somewhat terrifyingly perfect," Carlos manages, trying not to think about it too much.

They approach the door in the side of the metal shack. It has even more of those warning signs attached to it: the ones that show stick figures being dropped in fire and impaled on spikes, and now some extra ones that seem to include a disintegration ray.

"I'm not even going to try opening it," Carlos says, gesturing at the door. "They never open for me. They only seem to like you and Cecil, though I still have no idea why."

Kevin pats him on the arm. "Because we're special," he says.

And he grasps the handle, pushing the door open without any difficulty.

"…What are you doing here?" comes GLaDOS' voice at once. "Shouldn't you be off celebrating the success of your bizarre little radio show?"

"We wanted to very much," Carlos replies, with a sideways glower at Kevin. "But something's come up. A couple of Cecil's listeners found something weird in the desert."

The lie is alarmingly easy to tell. Carlos guesses it must be the overwhelming fear for his boyfriend's life, but it's best not to dwell on it all the same.

"Isn't that normal enough round here?" GLaDOS replies. "Given how weird your little town is, you must all be tripping over oddities at every turn. It must get very distracting."

"Well… this is weirder," Carlos insists. "And it will be of interest to you."

"Oh? And why is that? Come to think of it, why am I even indulging you? I've already been far nicer to you today than I wanted to be, so if you're expecting anything other than attempts on your life, you're going to be disappointed."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Kevin cuts in. "Because this oddity? It's a personality core."

"…A personality core?" GLaDOS repeats, clearly surprised. "You've got one of my personality cores?"

"Yes," Carlos tells her. "It's possible it was created in the desert during the Augmentor's brief power-up and not found until recently."

"Or that Black Mesa girl might have tried absconding with it," GLaDOS replies. "She comes over to _hang out_ with Chell all the time and I know for a fact she _moves_ things. It's very unhelpful."

"Uh… well… either way, we've got it now," Carlos says, trying to keep things on track.

GLaDOS sighs. "You'd better come in, then. I ought to get a look at the thing before I work out if it's better to keep it or have it incinerated at once. Some of those cores are _very_ annoying."

"And some are just delightful!" Kevin insists, which gets him a look from Carlos.

"You wouldn't say that if you'd met the Poetry Core," GLaDOS says. "It only talks in rhyming couplets and it makes _me_ talk in them as well if you attach it to my mainframe. Now _there's_ an afternoon of my life I'll never get back. Chell wasn't _remotely_ sympathetic, either; I don't know why I bother with you fragile mortals at times…"

Carlos facepalms, slings the inert core over his shoulder, and leads the way down into Aperture before GLaDOS – or Kevin – can get any worse.

Never mind Bring Your Scientist To Work Day, this is rapidly turning to Bring Your _Maniac_ To Work Day, and Carlos is not in favour. He decides to keep it to himself, though… because, if nothing else, it sounds rather too like something the City Council could run with if it was suggested to them.

"What _exactly_ does this core do?" he whispers to Kevin, as they make their way down the stairs.

"You'll see!" Kevin tells him, brightly.

And that alone is all kinds of worrying.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and head along the dimly-lit passageways into a wide room. It contains a door at the far end, which doesn't open when they get close.

"Uh… GLaDOS?" Carlos prompts. "I know you like science, but this might be easier for all of us if you just let us come straight in."

"I thought the same… at first," GLaDOS replies. "But then I took a more careful look at the man you've brought with you. I know _you're_ Carlos because I can just _tell_ , and I agree that he _does_ look and sound like Cecil. Except… Cecil always goes on about how his double's eyes are weird, and if I'm not mistaken… that man with you now has weird eyes."

"…He does?" Carlos manages, fighting to keep his voice level. "But it's just Cecil."

"Really?" GLaDOS pushes. "Because last time he got very cross with me for mixing the two of them up, so I took extra care to spot the subtle differences… and, trust me, I don't think that man is your radio-obsessed boyfriend."

"No, no, he is," Carlos insists.

"I'm not convinced," GLaDOS says. "I think the two of you are up to something. Maybe I should try dropping you in fire to see what happens…"

"No!" Carlos replies. "You don't have to do that. I… can convince you…"

He looks at Kevin, who has been watching this exchange with a cautious but bright expression throughout. And Carlos knows, at once, that there's only one way to convince GLaDOS… one way he really, really doesn't want to think about, much less actually do.

But he has no choice. If they don't pull this off, he won't be able to warn Cecil in time.

"Forgive me," he mutters – the words not directed at Kevin at _all_ – and then reaches out, grabbing hold of Kevin and pulling him in for a firm and (hopefully) decisive kiss.

…And merciful Einstein, he even _feels_ like Cecil. It's _so_ alarming.

When Carlos lets go, Kevin looks like he's about to fall over. His expression is utterly stunned and – for a truly blissful moment – he seems completely incapable of forming words.

"…I don't know why you humans think that activity is such a good way to convince people of anything," GLaDOS says. "But… who am I to argue? Fine. Fine. I'd better let you bring that core straight up. I can always send you through test chambers on the way out… given how much I know you love science…"

The door up ahead opens and there's an elevator pod beyond. "In you go," GLaDOS adds. "Try to resist the urge to carry on making out in there on the way up."

Carlos fights to keep his expression level and heads towards the pod before Kevin can say anything, though the other man still doesn't. He just follows like he's slightly out of his mind, and Carlos knows he's going to regret this later.

But what choice did he have?

They both step into the pod, core still in hand. Once they're in, the doors shut and off it goes, making its way up through the facility. And… OK, if they only had to go down a short flight of stairs to get to that previous room – a short flight of stairs that led directly from the surface – why are they able to rise up so many storeys on their way to GLaDOS' central chamber?

This place defies physics. It defies physics on a massive scale and Carlos has to not think about it for too long, or it makes his brain hurt.

After a moment, Kevin leans in close. "…You kissed me," he whispers.

"It was a _decoy_ ," Carlos hisses back, very much wishing it had taken longer for the other man to regain the power of speech. "I had no choice."

"I nearly fell down," Kevin says.

"Well, I'll try harder next time," Carlos replies, and then adds, hastily, "except there won't _be_ a next time because I have a boyfriend and you are a _maniac_."

Kevin still looks nothing other than delighted. "Oh, Carlos, you're such a charmer."

Carlos facepalms. "Please just kill me now…"

"…You know, you should be careful when you say that," Kevin points out, leaning in closer. "I think sometimes you forget that I _could_."

And there it is again: that little flicker of the true self behind Kevin's eternally-cheery façade. Carlos has seen it before, but that doesn't make it any less alarming… especially seeing as he's currently in a confined elevator pod with the man. He takes a deep breath and keeps his eyes forward, trying not to dignify the comment with a response, even though doing so is a response all of its own.

Mercifully, the pod comes to a halt a moment later, allowing the two men to step out into GLaDOS' central command chamber. She turns to stare at them with a look of acute resignation in her one, unblinking eye.

"Don't you two have anything better to occupy yourselves with other than bothering me all the time?" she asks. "You have homes and lives and jobs, yes? All those meaningless trappings humans cling to? Could you maybe resume clinging instead of harassing those of us with more important things to do?"

"If only it were that easy…" Carlos murmurs, then takes another deep breath. He doesn't want to do this. Of course he doesn't want to do this. He wants to be back home, celebrating the success of Bring Your Scientist To Work Day with his lovely and _actual_ boyfriend. Not stuck in Aperture with a personality core that cannot possibly be a good thing, and Kevin, who is _definitely_ not a good thing.

"Fine, then," GLaDOS replies. "Fine. I'll just take time out from watching my… my Chell and her equally-flexible double solving _vastly_ complex cooperative test chambers to talk to you about… is that it?"

Carlos sets the currently-inactive core down on the ground close to GLaDOS. "Yes," he says. "This is it. The personality core. The personality core that Cecil's listeners found out in the desert."

GLaDOS looks down at it a little suspiciously. "Hmmm. I don't recognise it. I do have dozens of the things, though, so that's not necessarily a surprise. We should be able to power it up without too much trouble and see whether it's worth keeping or incinerating."

A plinth rises up through the floor, with a port on the top: one of the ports scattered throughout Aperture that personality cores can be plugged into. One of the ports that – now Carlos looks – he realises is duplicated several times across the back of GLaDOS' physical form.

"Wouldn't it be quicker to plug the little thing into you?" Kevin asks.

"Technically, yes," GLaDOS replies. "But I'm not nearly stupid enough to plug a random core into my mainframe. Some of them are _extremely_ unhelpful and were created by the scientists to control me… and I'm sure you can imagine how that worked out. So. Plug it into that access port and I'll take a look from a safe distance."

Given what the core supposedly does, Carlos knows that GLaDOS won't let it anywhere near her as soon as she discovers. He glances over at Kevin, trying to keep the worry out of his eyes, and rather hating that he's looking to the man for advice on how to do something he doesn't actually want to do.

But. But. He has to go through with this before something happens to Cecil. Has to.

Kevin merely smiles… and does a weird little eye-flick between the core and GLaDOS.

And Carlos understands. "…Forgive me," he mutters – for the second time in recent moments – and he grips the core by one of its two handles and swings it quickly upwards, latching it onto one of the ports on GLaDOS' back before she can react. The core locks into place and immediately starts to glow, its yellow and orange eye swivelling as it powers up.

"I look around," it says, in a deep and gravelly voice that makes Carlos' blood go cold. "I look inside. I go to sleep. I have seen the Smiling God. I am _everything_."

" _Yes_ ," Kevin breathes, in rapture.

Then there's a shower of sparks and all the lights flicker out. "Oh… that's not good…" Carlos murmurs, backing away.

"… _I am everything_ ," GLaDOS declares. Her voice is the same, but more ominous somehow, and definitely more malevolent… which is really saying something.

The lights flash back on and GLaDOS turns to look at them, giving a little headtilt and then starting to laugh slowly. "Oh, you tiny humans," she says. "So finite. So mortal. You came here to attack me but the truth is… you've given me more than I ever thought possible. I see it all now. The power. The darkness. The spaces between worlds where _they_ are lurking, waiting for their moment… And I see the light. The sunshine. The hope of joy and productivity."

"That was the plan!" Kevin says, taking a step forward and clapping his hands together. Then he reaches up, gripping the crystal fragment around his neck for a second, and when he speaks again, his voice is – mercifully – back to normal. "And you were quite right, of course. I'm not Cecil. I'm Kevin. And that… is the Strex Core."

"A pun!" GLaDOS exclaims. "How delightful."

"For what it's worth, none of this was my idea," Carlos insists. "He made me do it. He's sent Cecil to Radon Canyon and he refused to let me warn him until I helped with this."

"So devious," GLaDOS says. "So very… Strex. I approve. But it won't save you. It won't save either of you."

There's another shower of sparks from the Strex Core and then the room starts to darken; the panels at its walls tilting to reveal ominous red lights beyond. Even Kevin seems a little alarmed, taking a step closer to Carlos who – for once – opts not to argue.

"The truth is, I've been far too nice to you and your little gang of variously-identical miscreants," GLaDOS goes on. "I think sometimes you forget that I'm a super-sentient AI who has murdered _hundreds_ of your fellow humans in the pursuit of science. Who once filled this entire facility with deadly neurotoxin just to prove that I _could_. Well, I've got news for you, gentlemen. _The cake_ is _a lie_."

And before either Carlos or Kevin can say a word, the floor beneath them opens up and they're both dropped into darkness, falling and falling and falling. For the first few seconds, all Carlos can do is scream, realising that when they hit the ground – and given this facility is supposedly miles-deep, that could be a while – it's going to horribly kill them both.

"This is all your fault!" he calls to Kevin, as they reach terminal velocity. 'Terminal' surely being the operative word here. "Why couldn't you just leave us alone?!"

"This really isn't the time for assigning blame!" Kevin replies. "We have larger problems to deal with. Unless I'm very much mistaken, neither of us is immune to falling from great heights!"

"Well spotted!" Carlos throws back, the terror making it harder and harder to think.

But Kevin smiles, and grips the crystal hanging around his neck. "I could _make_ us immune, though," he points out. "Briefly… but that would be enough."

"You… can do that?" Carlos dares to ask.

"Hopefully!" Kevin replies, still far too brightly. "You'll have to hold onto me, though. This thing doesn't exactly have a wide range."

"I've been too close to you more than enough for today!" Carlos insists, but he knows there's no point protesting. Not if he wants to survive this. Not if he wants to survive long enough to warn Cecil. "I… fine. Fine."

And – reluctantly – he reaches out, grabbing hold of Kevin and pulling the man in close. This gets him another of those terribly drawn looks, but for once Kevin has larger problems to deal with.

Like the fact that they appear to be rapidly approaching the ground.

"Hold on!" he shouts, gripping the shard of crystallised alternate reality and closing his eyes.

There's a flash of icy blue light, a weirdly electric sensation… and they hit the floor.

It hurts. But it feels like they've fallen maybe one storey, not thousands, and – despite everything – Carlos can't quite believe his luck as he lies flat on his back, blinking upwards at the long, empty chasm they've been falling down.

At his side, Kevin lets go of the crystal and drops his arm down onto the ground. "…I'm going to be honest here: that was not how I intended this to go."

"Oh, really?" Carlos replies, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his tone. "And how did you expect it to go? You get yourself a core that will make GLaDOS unfailingly loyal to Strex Corp – the most evil group on the planet – and stick it to her, and you're _surprised_ that it removed any lingering hesitations she had about trying to murder us?"

"…Sometimes you can be so negative," Kevin mutters.

"This is not negative, Kevin. This is realism!"

They start to scramble to their feet, and as they do, they can hear a series of metallic crunching noises drawing gradually closer.

"…That doesn't sound good," Carlos says, turning to look down the wide corridor they've landed in. It's clearly one of the corridors between test chambers, but from the design and the lighting it must surely be rather older than the ones they've seen so far.

"I have to agree with you on that," Kevin agrees, albeit a little reluctantly. "Also I should point out that saving _both_ of us from dying seems to have seriously depleted this thing." He taps the crystal around his neck, which despite never actually glowing seems somehow dimmer all the same. "It might be quite a while before I can alter reality again. So… I think we're on our own. But on the plus side, I managed not to almost pass out this time, so I'm chalking that up as a win."

The metallic crunching gets louder and louder, and something rounds the corridor up ahead of them: a thick, spiked plate on a rail, which is intermittently smashing into the floor and then moving along to smash into the next section of floor.

And it's getting closer.

"…That would be a mashy spike plate," Carlos manages. "Run!"

For once, Kevin doesn't argue, and they race off down the corridor in the opposite direction from the spike plate, which doesn't halt its progress, drawing closer and closer with every sickening crunch.

"We have to get away from it!" Carlos says. "And seeing as you dragged me out here without my portal emitters – and given that GLaDOS is unlikely to offer us a portal gun – we're really on our own."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Kevin throws back. The mortal peril seems to be cracking his cheery exterior more and more, and Carlos knows he would be worried by this, were he not already in far greater danger from the mashy spike plate that is rapidly gaining on them.

"We need to get into the walls!"

"How?"

"…I'm a scientist, Kevin," Carlos points out, realising he's going to have to risk stopping and hope he can get one of the panels open fast enough. "So be quiet and prepare to be impressed!"

He swings to a halt, yanks back one of the panels and starts working on the controls behind it. Kevin makes a slightly undignified squeak of surprise and skids to a halt beside him, staring down the corridor at the approaching spike plate.

"…We're going to die," he says.

"I'm working on it!"

"…We're going to die _soon_!"

"Kevin!"

"Carlos!"

"…Got it!"

The panel slides further back, and the instant it does Carlos grabs hold of Kevin and drags him behind the wall, mere seconds before the spike plate slams down on the spot where they were both just standing. Pressed in close, neither man moves for a moment, catching their breath… and then Carlos jumps back, moving further behind the wall, away from Kevin, because, for a second… he'd almost forgotten…

"That was close," Kevin says, brighter again.

"Yeah," Carlos has to agree, even as he folds his arms around himself for a moment, defensively. "It was close. Let's not do that again, if we can help it."

"Seconded," Kevin says. "We still have to… oh, Carlos, look at that."

Carlos turns and sees what Kevin is pointing at: another of those weird, confused drawings on the wall. This one is perhaps the most ominous so far, depicting a twisted, dark landscape with an eclipsed sun above it, and some kind of black-walled compound blasted open and drenched in what must surely be blood. Beneath it are the words: _'The mirror is cracked and time itself will fall. Behold the end and the beginning.'_

"…That can't be good," Carlos breathes. "These things never are."

"It's kind of pretty, though," Kevin remarks.

Carlos facepalms. "Only you would call a confused scrawling depicting the possible end of the world as 'pretty.'"

"So? It's still art!"

"…We need to keep moving," Carlos says, trying to keep things focused. "We have to get out of Aperture before GLaDOS manages to kill us. But… look. Can I at least have my phone back now? I did what you wanted and I may very well die horribly as a result, but I'd die a little happier knowing that the love of my life wasn't out being lethally irradiated at the same time."

"Oh… go on, then," Kevin replies, with a little grin. "But only because it's you."

He sticks his hand in his pocket and pulls out a pair of phones, tossing Carlos' over to him and then looking at his own. "I should really warn Tomas and Steve about this. I don't want them coming in after us and… oh. Well, darn it, that's not good. No signal."

"Me neither," Carlos says, looking up from his phone in resignation. "I think GLaDOS is catching on to our little tricks."

"Of course I am," GLaDOS says, her voice cutting through the air and making Carlos shiver with worry. "And much as I can't see you back there, I can still hear you. Trust me… the fun is just getting started."

"There's no need for all this hostility," Kevin insists. "We're on the same side now!"

"Maybe so," GLaDOS replies. "But you are superfluous to my needs. So: run. Let's see how far you get before I finally, finally manage to kill you. It's been a long time coming, after all."

In the distance, there's a new metallic crunching, drawing gradually closer.

"Uh… those things only work inside the test chambers, right?" Kevin asks, the barest nervous flicker in his tone.

"Oh no," says GLaDOS, brightly. "They work _everywhere_."

Despite himself, Carlos grabs Kevin's arm. "Run!"

***

The next hour is a hell from which Carlos doesn't think he'll ever recover. Despite staying behind the walls, they're still assailed by traps of every variety: spike plates, fire, more of that hideous, churning acid that fills some of the pits in the test chambers, and… soon, something even worse.

As Carlos spots a red laser beam from around the next corner, he instinctively seizes hold of Kevin and pushes him against the wall before he gets himself killed.

Unfortunately, this just makes Kevin's void-dark eyes dance with delight. "At last!" he exclaims. "I knew you'd come around eventually!"

"Quiet!" Carlos hisses. "I am not 'coming around.' I am saving you from being filled full of bullets by the gun turret waiting for us around that corner."

Kevin only looks marginally disappointed, because – if nothing else – Carlos is still holding him in place, and because the mention of the gun turret seems to have piqued his interest. "I haven't seen one of those yet," he says.

"Well, count yourself lucky," Carlos replies, letting go of him and edging closer to the bend in the corner, trying to glance around it without the turret seeing him. The second he peers out, the red laser beam swings in his direction.

"Who's there?" comes the creepy, genderless voice of the turret.

Carlos moves back out of sight before the wretched thing can try shooting at him, leaning against the wall and trying to concentrate. His mind is racing and he really doesn't know what to do. Without a portal gun of some kind… how can they get around it?

"Should we try talking to it?" Kevin suggests. "It sounds quite friendly."

"So do you," Carlos points out. "Besides, they're not true AIs. They can talk, but you can't interact with them. Not beyond getting horribly killed."

"So… how do we get around it?" Kevin asks.

"I'm thinking!" Carlos replies, but it's very difficult to focus. "I… hmmm… from what I've read, those things power down if you can knock them over. But we'll never get close enough to do that – not without ending up filled full of bullets."

"What if we throw something?" Kevin suggests.

Carlos is about to reply but then he pauses, considers this for a moment and then headtilts. "That's… actually a pretty good idea. But what do we have that we can throw? There aren't exactly any helpful cubes around and… oh. _Oh_."

"Oh?" Kevin echoes.

Carlos manages a smile. "Take your shoe off."

Kevin stares at him. "…What?"

"Trust me."

"…You're going to save our lives with footwear?"

"Yes. Now. Come along. You're impeding science."

Kevin looks a little suspicious but still hopelessly drawn, and he does as he's asked.

"OK, now the other one."

This makes Kevin narrow his eyes. "Why not one each?"

Carlos folds his arms. "Because you sent the love of my life to Radon Canyon and made GLaDOS lose any lingering sense of reason not to kill me. And if I'm being honest, Kevin, I'm _cross_ with you."

Unfortunately, this just makes Kevin grin more again. "Oh, you. I do like you when you get this way."

"Kevin!" Carlos insists. "Footwear! Now!"

"It's a science thing, right?" Kevin asks, as he complies.

"Yes," Carlos tells him. "It's a science thing."

He just has to hope it will be a _successful_ science thing. Grasping a shoe in each hand, Carlos approaches the corner up ahead again. He pauses, takes a deep breath, and then flings the first shoe out into the corridor.

"Target acquired!" the turret says, and opens fire on that terrifying foe of Aperture Science: Kevin's left shoe.

And as soon as it's turned, Carlos launches out again – more fully this time – throwing the second shoe directly at the turret before immediately diving back around the corner. He can't risk staying to watch, because if he's missed… it wouldn't end well.

But, amazingly, he hasn't. The shoe hits the turret with some force and knocks it over, making it cry out in what sounds like very real shock, firing wildly for about five seconds.

"I don't blame you…" it says, as the gunfire ceases, and then everything goes quiet.

"…Did it work?" Kevin whispers, after a moment.

Very slowly, Carlos edges back to the corner and peers around, and – sure enough – the turret is now lying on its side, its central eye inactive, and the walls all around are peppered with bullet holes.

"…Yes," Carlos replies, breaking into a grin despite everything. "Yes, it worked!"

"We make a pretty good team!"

"…Don't push your luck, Kevin."

As Carlos stands leaning on the wall, trying to get his heart rate to return to normal, Kevin retrieves his fallen shoes and tugs them back on. The one used to knock the turret over is quite intact, but the one used as a decoy has suffered some collateral damage.

"It shot my shoe!" Kevin points out, unnecessarily.

"Better than shooting either of us."

"Well, yes, but… my shoe!"

Carlos facepalms. "Why don't you summon your nice demon to fix it for you?" he says.

His tone is laden with sarcasm – life-threatening terror will do that to even the most placid of scientists – but Kevin apparently misses it because his own expression brightens again and he holds out his hands. There's a sound like a drum echoing in the depths of Hell… but before the man can start chanting, Carlos grabs his arms and drags them back down.

"Kevin. That was sarcasm. Please refrain from summoning your demon in front of me ever again."

"Awww, Carlos," Kevin pouts. "I thought you liked Azatothoth!"

"…He tried to rend me limb from limb," Carlos sort-of lies. "Besides, GLaDOS won't take kindly to you performing more ancient black magics in her facility. _Plus_ – and it really hurts to admit this, but nevertheless – if we _do_ end up needing an intervention from that demon of yours, I'd rather you weren't out of summonings. How many do you have left this week, anyway?"

"Just the one," Kevin tells him, brightly. "It would have been two, but Tomas introduced us to White Russians last night and then this morning I wanted latte but I was out of milk…"

"Well, there you go," Carlos manages, facepalming and trying very hard not to think about the rest. "Less demons, more science. Come along, before GLaDOS works out where we are."

Or before you get any worse.

***

Amazingly – or perhaps tellingly – it isn't too much longer before they make it to a flight of stairs leading upwards, with a half-open door at the top.

"…We're deep underground, right?" Kevin asks.

"Considering how far we fell when GLaDOS dropped us down that pit, I'd say at least a couple of miles, yes."

"OK, so… why does it feel like there's desert air coming in from that door?"

The man has a point. As Carlos gets closer, he can sense it too: the warm, lingering heat pouring in. The way the desert feels, a couple of hours after nightfall.

"…This place defies physics," Carlos manages, trying not to think about it too much. "It defies physics on a massive scale and I swear the longer it stays under Night Vale, the worse it gets. But… if that's really a way out of here, I won't argue."

He heads cautiously up the stairs – Kevin close behind – and pushes the door fully open; a door set into the side of a metal shack, which stands alone in the middle of the desert… no. Not the desert. This isn't the scrublands or the sand wastes.

"…Merciful Einstein," Carlos breathes, not sure whether to laugh, cry, or run straight back into Aperture. "I think this is Radon Canyon."

"Wow, that's… pleasingly circular," Kevin replies.

It's a truly breathtaking place, especially now; bathed in moonlight, with a skyful of stars twinkling overhead. The air is warm and heavy, and seems to glow a soft, shimmering green… except not where they are. For as Carlos looks around, he realises that something odd is happening: the area where they're standing, complete with the metal shack, is surrounded by a barely-perceptible dome of stillness.

He's seen something like this before: the night he and Cecil went out in the sandstorm with the Companion Cube. His heart leaps and he dares to hope… and the universe, for once, delivers.

A little way behind the shack, within the dome of stillness, is Cecil's car. The Companion Cube is perched on the roof and Cecil himself is sitting on the hood, grinning as he waits for Carlos to spot him. The moment their eyes lock, Carlos breaks into a smile of his own and hurries over to his boyfriend, who slides off the car just in time for Carlos to nigh-on leap on him, tackling him in a tight hug, overwhelmed with relief.

"I thought… oh, Cecil, I thought…" he tries, but he can barely get the words out. Of course his Cecil wouldn't be so foolish as to come to Radon Canyon without a way to protect himself from the hideously lethal radiation. Of _course_.

"I know," Cecil replies. "I'm so glad to see you too. I knew something had to be wrong when I got that text. Every time I mention this place you go all high-pitched and nervous so there's just no way you'd suddenly want me to come out here… unless something was very wrong. So I asked the Companion Cube and it said something about the end of the world – which is _very_ bad – and then it said I should bring it with me. Apparently it doesn't just control the weather but can also create some sort of radiation shield." He pulls back, gesturing at the bubble they're inside. "Neat, isn't it?"

"It really is," Carlos says, grabbing Cecil's face and kissing him hard and quick, before letting go and turning to gesture at Kevin, who has been watching this exchange with a mixture of delight and jealousy in his eyes. "Kevin has a fragment of crystallised alternate reality from the Alternate Reality Zone back in Desert Bluffs. He used it to change his voice and pretend to be you. Then he abducted me and sent _you_ here so he could make _me_ help him break into Aperture, to stick a new personality core onto GLaDOS. The Strex Core."

Cecil looks surprised. "…Strex Corp?"

"No, no, Strex _Core_ , with an E. Long story short, it made her completely evil – not just partly evil – and she tried to kill the two of us. A lot. We've been escaping from Aperture ever since, and now… now we're here. Where you also are. Which is sort of convenient, don't you think..?"

"Never mind that," Kevin cuts in, suddenly, making them both turn to look at him again. And as they do… Carlos instantly finds himself worrying, because there's a very disturbing flicker in Kevin's eyes, and doubly-so because he's advancing on them with very deliberate intent. "What about _me_? I need to get back in there and bring GLaDOS around to our way of thinking. The Strex Core is useless if it just makes her more homicidal. We want her more homicidal in a _helpful_ way. A… _Strex_ way. So you're going to have to come back in there with me."

"Not a chance, Kevin," Cecil says, moving quickly around so he's standing in front of Carlos. "If GLaDOS has gone super-homicidal, we're staying out of that place until she calms down. We're certainly not going to help you make things worse again."

"Oh, you," Kevin replies, but his voice is darker now. Much darker. "You really think I'm giving you a choice? You really think I have _ever_ been giving you a _choice_?!"

The only thing scarier than Kevin in one of his usual good moods is Kevin _not_ in one of his usual good moods, and Carlos finds his mind racing for a solution. And then… as it latches onto one, he almost can't give it voice because it's so… _wrong_.

But what choice _does_ he have? What choice has Cecil's demon-summoning double _ever_ given them?

"Cecil!" Carlos calls. "Grab the Companion Cube and run!"

If they can get far enough away from Kevin, get him outside the protective bubble… maybe Radon Canyon will do the rest.

It's so wrong. So, so wrong.

"Oh no you don't!" Kevin interjects, and leaps at them before either man can move. There's a brief scuffle and Carlos finds himself thrown against the metal shack, crashing into the side of it with some force… and as he struggles to regain his footing, he realises that Cecil and Kevin are fighting.

Well. They're not shirtless, and it's a ring of dangerous radioactive chemicals, not fire, but… apparently Carlos needs to be more careful what he wishes for.

"I should have seen it from the start!" Kevin declares, as he tries to roll out of Cecil's grip and finds himself tackled to the floor again. "All this time, I thought it was so cool to have a double who was more than just a mirror copy… but the truth is, _you're in my way_. And you always have been!"

"That would never have been a problem if you could have left well alone!" Cecil retorts. "But you couldn't. I should have killed you in that vortex when I had the chance!"

"Cecil!" Carlos exclaims in shock.

Cecil freezes for a second, evidently realising what he's said and looking suddenly horrified by it. The brief hesitation is just enough for Kevin to leap at him again, throwing Cecil to the ground and climbing on top of him.

"This is where it ends!" Kevin declares. "There was only ever room for one of us!"

"And it was never you!" Carlos shouts. He's managed to get nearer in the commotion and as soon as he's spoken, he's close enough to grab hold of Kevin and throw him bodily off Cecil… and out of the protective bubble, into the radioactive air.

Cecil glances over at his fallen double, then scrambles up with renewed horror in his eyes, throwing his arms around Carlos and just holding on.

"I… he…" Cecil tries, but he is – for once – lost for words.

"I'm sorry," Carlos whispers. "I didn't know what else to do. I…"

"…Oh, Carlos," comes an unwelcome voice from outside the bubble. Amidst the swirling, humming air, Kevin rises back to his feet, brushing himself off. The smile on his face would shatter lesser men: an expression equal parts ecstasy and hunger. And his eyes… his eyes are glowing; glowing as though all the fury of the universe was suddenly lodged behind those void-black irises. "Carlos. You really shouldn't worry. I'm quite OK. I'm _more_ than OK."

"…You're… immune to radioactivity?" Carlos manages.

"Oh no," Kevin replies, looking down at his palms, which have begun to glow a soft, ominous green. "I'm not immune to it at all. But it won't hurt me. Quite the opposite, actually…"

At his neck, the shard of alternate reality starts to glow too; vibrant ice-blue, shimmering in the night air that seems to spiral close to it, as if it's drawing more and more power from the radiation all around. Kevin looks down at it, and his smile gets worse. "Well," he says, tone still so bright but resonant with threat all the same. "Well. I must say, I didn't expect this… but I think I can work with it. Oh yes, yes… I can work with it."

He grips the crystal with one hand – light filtering between his fingers – and points at them with the other. "You're going to love what I have planned," he says. "I'll see you when I catch up…"

But before Carlos can even try asking what this means, there's a dazzling flash of light… and everything goes dark.

***

When reality reasserts, Cecil finds himself lying in… a street of some kind? They're back in the town? Or..?

Blinking, he pulls himself into a sitting position, staring around. Carlos is lying at his side, still unconscious, and nearby… nearby…

Cecil's breath catches in horror. They're right beside the radio station… or what's left of it. The building is half-burnt out and collapsed, its windows dark and dead. The sign reading 'Night Vale Community Radio' still hangs above the door, but the 'Night Vale' part has been half-covered by a slightly newer sign reading 'Strex Corp'; although it, too, has clearly seen better days.

"…Cecil?" Carlos murmurs. "Cecil, are we dead?"

"I don't know," Cecil manages, his voice about an octave higher than usual.

Carlos sits up, brushing himself off and looking around… and freezing in horror as he too realises where they are. "This… this is Night Vale, but…"

"…Something is wrong," Cecil says. "Look at all the buildings, they're…"

He can't even say it, so great is the horror at the sight assailing their eyes. As they scramble to their feet, they can see that everything around them is shattered and half-broken; some of it showing the scorch marks of fires long past, and some of it coated in what must surely be dried blood.

The air is silent and still; heavy with heat and yet near-dark, as if it was sunset. But as they look up, they can see that the sun is high in the sky… and eclipsed by the dark silhouette of the moon.

"What's happened?" Carlos manages. "We're… I… I can't…"

Cecil wraps his arms around his boyfriend and pulls him in, as if this could somehow protect him from the horrors they're now witnessing. But it can't. Nothing can. This is Night Vale, and it lies in scorched, shattered ruin, beneath a dark and merciless sun.

"…What did he do?" Carlos whispers, after a moment. "Kevin… he… he destroyed the world?"

"…It seems that way," Cecil replies. "We… we need to look around. We need to work out where… _when_ … we are, and if… if… anyone else is still alive…"

But how can he? How can he walk through his beloved Night Vale when it looks like this? How can he walk past buildings he saw only this morning, bright and whole and alive, when now… now they're dark and empty?

"That eclipse," Carlos says, looking up. "It ought to be ending, but… but it isn't."

"It isn't going to, is it?"

"I don't think so. I don't know what he's done to the moon but I think… the darkness is forever."

"We have to find out what's happened," Cecil whispers. "We have to work out how to stop it."

And so, gripping tightly to his boyfriend's hand as if he really is the last anchor of good in existence, Cecil leads the way deeper into what remains of the once-friendly desert community he called home.

***

The more they walk, the more it's clear the devastation covers the whole town. The streets are dark and empty, strewn with debris and – in some cases – bodies. Or… what's left of them. Lone sheets of newsprint blow in the warm air, which lifts the empty branches of a few lifeless trees. Some of the walls are marked with symbols and graffiti, but none of it is in any language Cecil recognises, and he can't tell if it's a good thing or a very, very bad thing.

And then they round a corner and find themselves looking at perhaps the most terrifying sight of all: for there, at the end of the street, with the permanently-eclipsed sun hanging over it… is the forbidden Dog Park. A plume of dark smoke rises ceaselessly from its centre, more visible than it would otherwise be because the once-impassable black obsidian walls have been blasted open. A huge hole, about a hundred feet wide and surrounded by debris, leaves an unobstructed view into the Dog Park itself, which seems as twisted and scorched as the rest of Night Vale. The huge monolith just inside – the monolith whose inscription formed an unexpected bonus discovery during Poetry Week – is cracked in two; half of it lying on the blackened grass and the other half still standing upright, pointing accusingly at the blood-red sky.

There are more bodies here, many of them in thick, black robes that obscure whoever – or whatever – lies beneath. It's a mystery Cecil has long wanted to solve, but he doesn't dare look now… too horrified by what he's seeing.

"This… I saw this," Carlos breathes. "When I was down in Aperture, with… with Kevin… we found another of those weird drawings on the wall. I didn't recognise it then, but… this is what it showed. And it said… it said… _'The mirror is cracked and time itself will fall. Behold the end and the beginning.'_ "

Cecil shivers. "…They destroyed the Dog Park," he manages. " _He_ destroyed the Dog Park. It… we… Carlos, what do we do?"

"…You made it!" comes a bright and terrifying voice behind them.

They turn… and there stands Kevin. He's robed in black with flashes of yellow, and the shard of alternate reality still hangs at his neck, glowing ceaselessly. He smiles, holding out his hands and wordlessly making himself levitate a few inches above the ground, as they watch in horror.

"Oh, it's been so long," Kevin says, when neither Cecil nor Carlos is able to speak. "So long. I've missed you. It felt like I'd never catch up."

"When is this?" Cecil manages, needing an answer. Needing to know. "What's the date?"

"I forget the exact day – time really doesn't work round here, especially now," Kevin replies. "But roughly-speaking, it's June 2016. 6-16. Cute choice, huh?"

Carlos facepalms. "There is something very wrong with you."

"Carlos, lovely Carlos, there's a _lot_ wrong with me," Kevin replies. "And you know what? The more I do – the more I _alter reality_ – the more I realise I like it. I'm so glad you're here at last. So glad you've had a chance to see what I could do to your little town. I bet you wish you'd just let me use the Augmentor, now. Then Night Vale would be a safe and happy part of Desert Bluffs, rather than a shattered shell under a dark and merciless sky."

"We would _never_ wish that," Cecil throws back, as bravely as he can. "Never. We'd rather be dead than living in this _hell_."

Kevin smiles. He smiles, and then he laughs, palms starting to glow brighter and brighter as he levitates higher above the ground. "Oh, Cecil, I never could quite deny you." He gives a little floating bow. "Your wish is my command."

There's a flash of light, a bolt of energy… then Cecil feels a mercifully quick stab of pain, and reality goes black.

***

"What did you do?!" Carlos screams in horror, as his boyfriend drops to the floor.

"I did what he asked," Kevin replies. "He said he didn't want to live in this world… so now he doesn't have to. He's dead."

It's more than Carlos' mind can process. He throws himself to his knees at Cecil's side, feeling for a pulse… but there's nothing. Nothing. And he's not breathing.

"You, on the other hand… I wouldn't kill you even if you begged me," Kevin goes on. "Maybe you will, eventually… but it won't be enough. All those times you denied me, ignored me, chose him _over_ me… well. I bet you regret them just a little now. I'll leave you two alone for the time being, although… maybe 'two' is a bit of an over-count…"

And – perhaps mercifully – Kevin vanishes in a flash of light.

"Cecil!" Carlos says again, starting to perform CPR in desperate hope, struggling to hold his concentration together despite the horror and grief. It has to work. It _has_ to work.

 _It has to work_.

"…Please…" he whispers, in between chest compressions. "Please don't leave me… not like this… not like this… _please_!"

Nothing. Still nothing. Carlos doesn't think he's ever felt so frantic and terrified all at once, and it would hit right to his core if he had the time to dwell on it.

But he doesn't.

"Come on, come on… Cecil, don't go…"

And then, all of a sudden, Cecil jumps upwards, drawing a single, deep gasp before collapsing into coughing as he fights to get the air back into his lungs. Carlos feels like he's going to break into sobs of relief but somehow he keeps himself together – just about – letting Cecil breathe and then pulling him into a desperate, desperate hug.

"I thought you were dead!" he cries, the full weight of all the emotion finally hitting him all at once. "I thought… I thought…"

"…He's alive?" comes a soft voice from behind them – a voice that's so subtly familiar but new at the same time. Without letting go of Cecil even a little, Carlos turns… to see that someone else is now watching them.

The newcomer is a young woman, with dark skin and short, black hair, dressed in shades of deep blue. She's slim and pretty – almost elfin in a way – and watching them with acute concern in her warm, hopeful eyes.

"Yes," Carlos manages. "He's alive. I… do I know you?"

"Is… is that..?" Cecil tries, and Carlos pulls him into a sitting position – keeping him close – so he can see the woman. And when he does, Cecil breaks into a smile. "…Dana?!" he exclaims.

"Cecil!" Dana says. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

" _Oh_ ," Carlos breathes, the light dawning. "You're Dana… you're the intern who got trapped in the Dog Park!"

Dana nods. "That's me," she says. Her voice is bright, but not the terrifying brightness Kevin favours. This is more of a hopefulness, and it makes Carlos relax a little, trusting that the young woman is on their side. "But that was just the start of it. The places I went, the things I saw… I thought I'd never reach the end. And maybe I never would have… were it not for the day that Kevin tore open the walls between dimensions."

"He did what?!" Carlos exclaims.

"He tore open the walls between dimensions," Dana repeats, with a little shudder. "The things that came through… oh, you don't even want to know. Had it not been for the Mayor, so many more of us would have died in those first few days."

"The Mayor?" Cecil says. "She fought creatures from other dimensions?"

"No, no, not Pamela Winchell," Dana replies. "Hiram McDaniels. He'd won the mayoral election just a couple of weeks earlier – I only found out about it after I made it back through – and it turns out that a thirty-six-hundred-pound fire-breathing dragon with five heads is an _excellent_ guy to have on your side when beings from other dimensions are trying to rend you limb from limb. It took at least half a dozen of the big ones to finally take him down, and even then most didn't survive the final battle. Because of him, so many more of us made it out alive."

"There are other survivors?" Carlos asks, feeling the faintest glimmer of hope in the midst of all this insanity.

Dana nods. "Oh yes. We live down in the subway tunnels."

"Is that wise?" Cecil says, looking worried again. "Last time I checked, there was… something down there. Something timeless and endless and… indescribable."

"So I hear," Dana replies. "Quite a few people were concerned about that. But whatever it was… it's gone now. Only the tunnels are left. You should come down there with me. It's much safer, and… you can meet our leader. The one who saved us. The one who came out of the desert to lead us to safety when all seemed lost…"

"Who is it?" Carlos asks.

And Dana smiles. "The woman in the orange jumpsuit."

***

And so, with Dana leading the way, they head towards the nearest subway entrance. Carlos keeps an arm around Cecil as they walk, and Cecil is even more glad of it than usual. He can't stop thinking about what's just happened… about those thankfully scant few moments when he was, technically, dead.

How are you even supposed to process something like that?

In many ways, he doesn't want to. He'd rather be here in this future-hell with his Carlos than somewhere else without him.

Going down into the subway is an odd experience in its own right, also for reasons that Cecil doesn't want to think about. In fact, he seems to be compiling a list of things to avoid thinking about, of which 'temporarily dying' is at the top, 'being trapped in a hellish, dark future' comes second, and 'going back into the subway' is currently third.

It puts things in perspective, somehow.

…Oh, now he's thinking about it again.

If nothing else, the walk down into the subway feels a lot different from last time. The air is cool and still, and that strange sense of terrifying _otherness_ is gone. To start off with everything seems deserted… but as they go deeper, they can eventually hear sounds up ahead.

Soon they reach a heavy metal shutter barring the way forward, of the sort that might have been used to close the subway station for maintenance works or public holidays or an explosion of time and unreality from the unknown being of awesome age that may or may not have lived down here once. The shutter itself is painted with an emblem: the purple eye of Night Vale, but with the iris now the symbol of Aperture science.

Dana gives them both a little smile. "Welcome to the underground," she says, and lifts the shutter. It rises with a metallic clunk, revealing the wide old subway station beyond: a station now dotted with tents and shacks. The homes of some of the survivors.

There's more of them than Cecil had dared to hope, and plenty of faces he recognises. It's quite a relief to walk between the tents as Dana leads them deeper in, even if they do get a lot of confused looks at the same time.

Which is understandable. Given that he and Carlos must have just disappeared when Kevin altered reality to send them to the future… everyone surely thought they were dead.

…Something else for the list of things he doesn't want to think about.

Eventually they get to a door that Dana pushes open, leading them into the area beyond. It's a fairly small but ultimately private living space whose owner is currently standing at the far end, staring at a map drawn on the wall: a map of Night Vale and the desert around it.

The person – the woman in the orange jumpsuit – turns, expression breaking into one of surprise when she sees them.

"Cecil?" Chell exclaims. "Carlos?"

Dana gives a little smile. "I found them up on the surface, near the Dog Park. Just like he said. They'd had a run-in with Kevin so I thought I'd better get them down here as soon as possible, in case that maniac decided to come back for another round."

Chell looks suddenly worried. "Kevin was up there?"

Dana nods. "Yeah. He was looking for these two."

"Thank goodness you made it back," Chell replies. "I don't know what I'd do if…"

"I know," Dana says, softly, crossing the short distance over to Chell and – to Cecil's amazement – rising up onto tiptoes to give the other woman a soft, loving kiss.

Chell catches the look of surprise and grins a little as they break apart. "Maybe you'd better sit down," she says.

There are no chairs, so they settle in a circle on the floor. There's so much Cecil wants to ask that it's hard to work out where to start, but Carlos evidently has more of an idea because he says, "…The two of you are together?"

Chell and Dana exchange a smile. "Yes," Chell replies. "For… oh, nearly a year and a half now."

"…This… may be a little impolitic, but… what happened to GLaDOS?" Cecil asks, carefully.

Chell's eyes fill with sudden sadness, and Dana grips her hand tight. "She's dead," Chell answers, softly. "She and DORiS… kind of went to war when everything started to fall apart. Mish and I tried to get them to build on that weird tentative alliance-in-science thing they had going on, but the more Kevin got power-mad, the more it rubbed off on DORiS… and she was power-mad enough to begin with. GLaDOS didn't take it too kindly and they ended up fighting."

"…How do super-sentient AIs fight?" Carlos asks. It's something Cecil was wondering about too.

"Alarmingly," Chell answers. "When the facilities ended up here, they got connected into the power systems and into the broadband lines, so GLaDOS and DORiS fought electronically. They hacked into each other's systems and used them to launch attacks, escalating further and further as they got more creative. In the end… in the end GLaDOS won. Just. She managed to wipe out the Black Mesa place entirely, but it took everything she had and… and I couldn't save her."

Dana grips her hand even tighter, and even Cecil feels a pang of pain at the thought. "You… were there?" he asks, carefully.

Chell nods, taking a deep breath. "I was there. I'd been trying to talk her down but I think in my heart I knew it would never be enough. At least her final systems failure was quick. Do you know what the last thing she said to me was?"

Cecil shakes his head.

"…'Don't you even _think_ about trying to bring me back as a potato.' And you know what? _I was_."

Chell takes another deep breath. "After that… after that, I couldn't stay in Aperture, so I came up here. The town was in chaos because of everything Kevin had been doing with that super-charged alternate reality crystal of his, and I turned up only a day or so after Hiram McDaniels fell in battle against… against whatever all those _things_ were. I got as many people together as I could and started moving them underground and… well, here we are."

"What happened to Mish?" Carlos asks. He looks like Cecil feels – equal parts shocked and sad – and it makes Cecil reach over to grip his hand.

"She was in the Black Mesa Augmentation Centre when GLaDOS took it out," Chell answers. "She and I… we tried to stay friends even when GLaDOS and DORiS were fighting, but… it wasn't easy. Eventually, Mish went back to DORiS for good, and I'm certain she was in there when the place went up."

Cecil nods. "So… now… the two of you?"

Dana smiles just a little, though she doesn't let go of Chell's hand. "Yes. I made it back to normal space and time when Kevin pulled the dimensions open and let all those things in. I didn't know what was going on and I couldn't find my mother or my brother. I even looked for you, Cecil, but everyone said you'd vanished weeks earlier. And then… then I heard about the mysterious woman who was rescuing people. The woman in the orange jumpsuit. I went looking for her, and… well. Here I am."

"And… now?" Carlos asks, carefully.

"Now… we survive," Chell replies. "It's not easy, given everything that goes on up top, but we do our best. And I still have the portal gun you modified for me; the one that works everywhere." She grins just a little, despite everything. "It's _very_ useful. I wouldn't be here without it."

"But… why not do something about Kevin?" Cecil asks. "If we could stop him, maybe we could save what's left of Night Vale. Maybe… we could make things right again."

He has to hope. His wonderful Night Vale is all but destroyed, and the thought alone is heartrending. Having actually seen it only makes things worse.

"Maybe," Dana agrees. "But we might have something even better. We think there could be a way to undo all of this. To stop it from ever happening in the first place."

Chell looks down again, and Cecil can see the pain in her eyes. "We're not sure," she says. "We couldn't try it until we found you, but now you're here… it's worth a shot. But…"

She trails off, and Dana presses in closer. "It's OK," she says, softly.

"What is it?" Cecil asks.

Dana and Chell both look up, the sadness clear in both of their expressions now, and it falls to Carlos to answer. "…If we undo all of this, we'll undo Dana's escape from wherever it was she ended up. From that other time and place. If we undo all of this… she'll be lost again."

"But all of you would be OK," Dana insists. "Night Vale would be OK. And I… I was OK, wandering about in that other dimension. I was. So… we have to do it, if we can. We have to put this right."

"I don't deserve you," Chell whispers, looking at Dana, which just makes the other woman smile; a little sadly, yes, but honestly all the same.

"You saved my life," Dana replies. "Now let me help save yours."

"…You said you needed us," Carlos says, after a moment. "Why?"

"This… is where it gets complicated," Chell answers.

Somehow, this makes Carlos look a little brighter. "Will we need string?" he asks.

Chell headtilts. "String?"

"Yes, string. To make sense of it."

"Uh… hopefully not," Chell says. "Basically speaking, we need to find a way to send the two of you back in time. We know that Kevin sent you forward in time to today because… well, because we know. If we can send you back, with the knowledge of what's happened, you'll have a chance to stop Kevin before he does anything."

"…I'm hesitant to suggest it, but aren’t there allegedly several time machines in the Museum of Forbidden Technologies?" Carlos asks.

"There were," Dana replies. "After Hiram McDaniels was killed, Kevin took out the City Council and started making his own laws. He had time travel made illegal again and removed all the time machines from the museum. Which – from his point of view – was a sensible thing to do."

"So… what other option is there?" Cecil wonders.

"Well… you see, there's this…" Chell says, reaching into the pocket of her jumpsuit and pulling out a folded piece of paper – old and faded – which she hands to Cecil. "I found this drawn on a wall inside Aperture the day before GLaDOS and DORiS killed each other. I didn't know what it meant, but I was sure it had to be significant so I drew myself a copy."

Carefully, Cecil unfolds the paper, and he and Carlos look at the picture drawn on it: another of the bizarre and strangely prophetic images that seem to be dotted around the Aperture facility, of which this is perhaps the most complex and intricate that they've seen. At its centre it depicts a clock, but instead of numbers it has phases of the moon, though not in any kind of sequence, and around the clock is a spiral of yellow and green, with little stick figures dotted on it, all of them clutching their heads as if scared or confused. Written across the top is the word 'unreason,' and to the side is written 'bring your day' with three more words underneath: 'cat,' 'daughter' and 'scientist,' though the first two have been crossed out.

"Whoa," Carlos breathes. "Do you have any idea what it means?"

"Honestly, no," Chell admits. "But… I think there may be a way to find out. You see… these pictures in Aperture didn't appear randomly. I thought they did at first, and at one point I thought I was going mad, but… no. No. All the time I was in there – and all the time since – there was someone else in Aperture. Another human. Another human so good at hiding, even GLaDOS couldn't find him. It took me ages to work it out, but eventually I discovered who he was. Who he _is_. Aperture's mysterious artist is also its last surviving human scientist… Doug Rattmann."

"There was a survivor?" Carlos says, looking surprised. "I thought they were all killed."

"All but one," Chell replies. "GLaDOS took the others out with deadly neurotoxin on the infamous Bring Your Daughter To Work Day – yes, yes, I know," she adds, seeing Cecil and Carlos' surprised looks, " – but one of them realised what she was up to and managed to save himself. He remained hidden inside the facility, becoming more and more erratic as… well, as his meds wore off. And he's been there ever since. At some point whilst – ironically – saving _my_ life, he was shot by one of the turrets, and managed to lock himself away in a medical stasis pod, which eventually healed him. By the time I tracked down where he'd been, he was gone again, and I never got another lead on him. He's… like a ghost, except he's real. And he drew the original version of this picture, which means he might be able to explain it. I know it's a long shot, but it's the only one we have."

"So… how do we find him?" Cecil asks. "You said… you needed us?"

"We have two problems," Chell goes on. "Since I left Aperture, I haven't been able to get back into it. And even if I could, I've never been able to find Doug Rattmann – and I know that place inside out. But you, Cecil… you always had the _weirdest_ connection to the facility, in a way that I could never understand. If you look for a way in… I think you'll find one. And I'm hoping – really, really hoping – that if you look for Doug Rattmann, you'll find him, too."

It's a lot to take in, but it's also a potential way to undo this terrible place and time, and that means they have to try. Cecil looks over at Carlos and sees the same determination in his boyfriend's eyes, and it makes him realise: he didn't die, the subway is no longer dangerous… and this hell can be prevented.

It can. They have to make sure of it.

"All right, then," Cecil replies. "We'll find our way back into Aperture, and we'll find this man. And if he can tell us what this picture means… maybe we can work out how to undo all the destruction wreaked on our Night Vale."

It's a long shot, and he knows it. He knows they all do. But it's also the only shot they have.

***

Chell and Dana opt to come along too – which doesn't surprise Cecil in the slightest – and before long they're making their way cautiously back to the surface, Chell bringing along her modified portal gun. Up above the eclipsed sun hangs low in the sky… which is impossible, of course, and Carlos says as much… yet there it is, ominous and dark, and sinking fast.

With no working cars left, they have to walk out into the desert. Chell and Dana stay close together and are soon talking softly, and Cecil deliberately hangs back a little to give them some space.

And… to give himself some space. Processing all of this isn't easy. There's so much of it: the devastation everywhere, the losses, the _deaths_ … _his_ own brush with mortality. And… there's the lingering awareness that this – that all of this – was caused by his double. By the man who is him, but not him. It's a little too much to take in, when he really thinks about it. Could he have done the same, if their positions had been reversed? Would he have tried to take out Desert Bluffs – terrible, awful, blood-drenched Desert Bluffs – if he could?

"Are you OK?" Carlos asks him, after Cecil has been quiet for a while.

"…I don't know," he replies. "I can't stop thinking about all of this. I… can't, I…"

He pauses, which makes Carlos pause too, turning to grip his shoulders. "Kevin isn't you," he insists, understanding without Cecil even having to say a word. "I know sometimes… sometimes you have things in common, besides the obvious physical appearance, but at heart… you're nothing alike."

"But he… how could he do all this?" Cecil manages, barely able to meet Carlos' eyes. "I mean, the thing with the Augmentor, I understood. I didn't _want_ it, of course I didn't, but I can understand why he wanted to turn Night Vale into more of Desert Bluffs. But… this? All this destruction? How could he?"

Carlos tugs him in, wrapping both arms around him and holding on tight. "I don't know. Maybe he went mad with power. Maybe… the possibility was there in him all along. Whatever the answer is, it isn't your fault. None of this is your fault. _He isn't you_. Would you have done it, if your places were reversed? Would you have destroyed Desert Bluffs?"

"No," Cecil says. "No. Maybe I might have wanted to change them… but I wouldn't even do that. It would be wrong."

Pulling back just enough to meet Cecil's eyes, Carlos smiles just a little. "Then there you have it. You see? You're the _good_ double."

It feels so much more believable coming from Carlos, and Cecil manages a smile in return. "Thanks," he says, softly. "I… all of this is a lot to take in."

"Oh, I know," Carlos agrees, as they grip hands and start walking again. "And we still don't have all the answers. For one thing… we don't know what's become of _my_ double. I'd be surprised if he's not in league with Kevin in some way. Tomas… I try to tell myself he's not so bad, and sometimes when I'm around him I can almost believe it, but the truth is that anyone who moves to Desert Bluffs to work for Strex Corp has to be bad news."

"I'm afraid so," Cecil replies.

They travel on for quite a while; sometimes talking, sometimes walking in silence. It's hard to focus on anything else when they're surrounded by such devastation; by familiar buildings lying in ruin. For the most part it's all eerily quiet, although as they pass the Public Library, they can hear a burst of commotion from inside.

"Don't go near it," Dana warns, seeing Cecil pause to look. "Seriously, don't. The librarians went wild in there. Dozens of people were killed… or worse."

"…The librarians _went_ wild?" Carlos repeats, expression aghast. "As in, they got _worse_?"

"Oh yes," Dana replies. " _Much_ worse. Rumour has it that Tamika Flynn led the remnants of the Youth Militia into the catacombs under the library, and they're still engaged in trench warfare with the librarians down there. But… no one who has gone in to find out for sure has survived long enough to get out again."

Cecil shudders. Knowing that Tamika and her young soldiers might still be keeping the librarians at bay is comforting somehow… though it doesn't negate the effect of the _sounds_.

They hurry on past, but it feels like a long time before the terrifying noises fade into the distance. Once they do, the route is quiet again, as they head all the way out of Night Vale and into the desert.

The permanently-eclipsed sun has set by the time they're walking across the scrublands, and the sky overhead is dotted with stars… though no moon, of course. And that means it's soon incredibly dark, given that there's no light from Night Vale any more, and Desert Bluffs… is thankfully too far off.

"…I hope we find an entrance soon," Carlos says. He hasn't let go of Cecil's hand in quite some time now, and there's a distinctly worried edge to his tone. But that's more than a little understandable, given that it's so dark they can barely see more than a few feet ahead, and so quiet that it seems like the only sounds are their footsteps, and the barest rustle of the wiry bushes in the faint breeze.

"Seconded," Cecil agrees. " _Very_ soon."

"We're not far from where they used to appear," Chell says. "Hopefully we should be able to… wait, what was that?"

They all freeze where they're standing, having heard the sound too: the soft thump of footsteps in the darkness. Cecil puts his arm around Carlos, but it's hard to work out how best to stand protectively when he can't tell where the potential danger could be.

"…Hello?" Chell calls out, brandishing her portal gun as if it might help stave off an attacker, when – in reality – it's useless as a conventional weapon.

There's no answer, but the footsteps are getting closer, and it's so dark that they can barely see a thing.

"Hello?" Dana tries too. She and Chell are standing back to back, trying to widen their field of view as much as possible, and Cecil is suddenly struck by the realisation that they must have worked together like this so many times before.

Still no answer. "…Oh, I'm not enjoying this," Carlos whispers.

And then the source of the footsteps draws close enough for them to see who – or, more precisely, _what_ – it is.

" _Oh_ ," Chell breathes, visibly relaxing.

It's a tall, elegant female deer; dark eyes glittering ethereally in the starlight. It ambles calmly up to them, approaching Chell and gently headbutting her arm.

"I haven't seen you in a while," Chell says to it. "How's life?"

The doe gives her a quizzical look, though not as quizzical as the one she gets from Carlos. "…Again with the deer," he mutters. "Just what _did_ we do to spacetime?"

"You don't even want to know," Chell replies, with a grin. Then she turns back to the deer. "Which way do we go, then?" she asks it, reaching to gently stroke its neck. "How do we get in?"

The doe stares at her for a moment, then turns to look out into the empty darkness… except it isn't empty anymore. Up ahead, barely visible but clearly there, is a lone metal shack, which they all _know_ wasn't around a moment ago.

"… _Oh_ ," Chell breathes, staring.

Dana smiles. "Wow, I didn’t think that would work so well. I'd say it was weird, but… round here, I guess it's pretty normal."

"Helpful, though," Cecil adds.

"Definitely helpful," Dana agrees.

And the doe leads them over to the shack, waiting until they get close before it turns to headbutt Cecil's arm.

"Oh, it likes you too," Chell says. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Try the door?"

So Cecil does: reaching out and grasping the handle, and feeling it click open with the barest pressure. The doe makes a soft sound of approval and headbutts his arm again.

"…We finally made it," Chell whispers. "I… after so long, I…"

Dana reaches to grip her hand. "You can do this. You're not alone."

And Cecil can't help the faintest smile, because it's like looking into a mirror… albeit a mirror with stranger dress sense and more curves. But at least it's not an evil mirror, which is a refreshing change.

Chell takes a deep breath. "You're right," she says. "You're right."

And, with the doe still watching them, they set off down the dark staircase beyond the door, and into what remains of the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre.

***

When they're gone, the doe wanders a little way from the shack, nudging at one of the wiry bushes and then glancing up at the sky.

Overhead, just for a second, the full moon flickers into view… and then it's gone again.

But it's a start.

***

Aperture is cold and quiet, and completely still. It can be quite an ominous place at the best of times, but now… Carlos doesn't think he's ever been quite so creeped out by it.

As they walk in, some of the lights flicker on – and he's sure it's Cecil they're responding to – but not nearly as many as usual, meaning that every room they pass through is filled with shadows and dark corners.

All four of them walk close together, Chell leading the way with her portal gun held ready. They pass through several empty rooms, though none are test chambers, until – finally – they turn a corner and find themselves facing a wall on which a familiar picture is drawn. It's the one Chell has been carrying a copy of – the clock in the spiral – and it's even weirder like this.

"How do we find this guy?" Carlos wonders aloud, as he stares at the picture, eyes following the confused lines of colour.

"Honestly… I don't know," Chell answers. "I never could… and I tried, believe me. But our theory is that now Cecil is here… we might be able to find him. I guess… we just keep going until we do."

It still seems like a long shot… but what other option do they have?

They head onwards, along the empty corridors, every footstep sounding like a potential threat… but nothing comes of it. Aperture is silent as the grave.

"…I never thought I'd long for the times when GLaDOS would try to kill us, but I could really use a mashy spike plate right now…" Carlos mutters.

"Or a turret," Cecil adds.

 _"…Hello?"_ comes a little voice, just as they round another corner. They're in the room with it before any of them can react: an otherwise empty space, with a single turret standing in the centre. Its red laser beam is shining out… but it's flashing, as if something isn't right and, even as Carlos processes the burst of fear at the sight of the thing, he realises the laser itself isn't moving to point at them.

Chell has already dived in front of Dana, and is aiming her portal gun when she seems to process what they're seeing and freezes. "Oh," she breathes, taking a cautious step forward. "Oh… it's _that_ one."

"Why isn't it shooting at us?" Cecil whispers.

 _"I'm different…"_ the turret says. Its voice is like all the other turrets, except… less malevolent.

"I've seen this one before," Chell says. "It won't attack us."

She takes a step forward, and although the turret doesn't move, it clearly notices her because it says, _"…Now the moon is hidden and the stars are underground…"_

Cecil and Carlos exchange a worried look, recognising the words as if from long ago. "Did it say..?" Cecil starts out.

"…Yes," Carlos replies. "There had better not be a–"

 _"Yellow is bad!"_ the turret interrupts. _"The sky lies!"_

"What does all this mean?" Dana wonders, looking at the turret in amazement.

 _"Only the lone third eye can keep the mirror from shattering…"_ the turret says.

"It's reciting things we've seen written on the walls," Cecil says. "In pictures, like the one of the clock. Almost like… like it _knows_ …"

 _"The mirror is cracked and time itself will fall…"_ the turret whispers, which makes Carlos jump because he hasn't fully processed, until now, just how ominous that particular statement was. He stares at the turret, trying to work out how to give voice to the sudden chill he's feeling, but he can't quite find the words.

The turret is also silent for a moment, and Dana reaches out to gently touch the top of it. The moment her hand makes contact, it squeaks out, _"Unreason! Unreason!"_

She jumps back, eyes full of worry, and looks over at Chell. "What does all this mean?" she wonders aloud.

"I don't know," Chell replies. "I…" She turns to Cecil and Carlos. "You say you've heard all of these things before?"

"I have," Carlos answers. "Well, _read_ them, technically. They're all from pictures we've found on the walls in Aperture… and Black Mesa too, now I think about it. The one about the third eye was definitely Black Mesa. But… I didn't think they were all connected… at least, not like this… Except of course they _are_ , if what you're saying is true and this Doug Rattmann… and his Black Mesa double, I guess… drew them all."

"…They _are_ connected," Dana whispers, as if understanding something all of a sudden. "The moon _is_ fallen. The sky _does_ lie. And… the mirror between Night Vale and Desert Bluffs really does seem to have cracked, given everything that's happened here."

"But… what about the third eye?" Cecil can't help wondering. "Before… that was… that was _Steve Carlsberg_. Are you seriously suggesting we need _his_ help again?"

"Let's hope not," Chell replies, "because he vanished almost two years ago. No one's seen or heard from him since."

"What happened to him?" Carlos asks. He knows Cecil won't want to talk about it, given all his inexplicable issues with the man, but given Steve's connection to Kevin, it's a question they really need to voice.

"I don't know a lot of it," Chell answers. "He and Kevin had a rather loud and public falling-out because of what was happening to Night Vale. Your double – Tomas – he tried to smooth things over, but Steve was having none of it. He disappeared just before Kevin tore open the walls between dimensions – heck, it might even have been why he did it – and there's been no sign of him since."

"…Please tell me we don't have to find him?" Cecil mutters, head in his hands. "I've spent quite enough time around that guy for one lifetime."

"I don't know," Carlos replies. "We… may have to. For now, we need to focus on finding Doug Rattmann. We need to know what the clock picture means."

 _"Exile!"_ the strange turret squeaks, all of a sudden. _"Exile vilify!"_

"…Don't even try…" a new voice half-whispers, from the corner of the room.

They all turn in shock, to see a shadowy figure standing beside a half-open wall panel and staring at them. It's a man, with pale skin and wild, straggly black hair, including a rather enthusiastic beard. He's dressed in a lab coat that looks like it's seen better days, and has a battered-looking Companion Cube tucked under one arm.

"…Oh my," Dana breathes.

"…Doctor Rattmann?" Chell says, taking a step towards him.

Doug Rattmann's wild eyes go wilder, and without a word he turns and clambers behind the wall panel, racing off down the passageways beyond.

"Quick!" Chell exclaims. "We need to catch up with him!"

So – leaving the strange turret still flickering and muttering away to itself – they slip behind the panel one by one and hurry along the gantryways, trying not to lose sight of Aperture's most skittish resident.

"Doctor Rattmann!" Chell calls. "It's all right, we just need to talk to you!"

But Rattmann doesn't seem interested in listening, and Carlos worries they're going to lose him… until they turn into a side-room and find themselves surrounded by more of the wall art. The room is – seemingly – a dead end, as much as there can ever be a true dead end within a constantly-shifting place like Aperture, and it looks like Rattmann might currently be living in here, judging by the makeshift bed and cans strewn in one corner, with his battered Companion Cube placed carefully nearby.

"Whoa," Carlos breathes, taking in the new picture on the wall. "This is…"

"…Weird?" Dana suggests.

"…Ominous?" Cecil murmurs.

"…Stunning…" Chell whispers.

In truth, it's all of the above and a lot more besides. The back wall of the room is taken up with a huge mural, depicting a broken and shattered city, with an eclipsed sun hanging above it. All around the city are little silhouetted figures, each with a spiral of white and purple on their chests, and all of them are looking up at a series of much larger, more ominous silhouetted figures that stand over the ruined city… with a red-eyed figure at their head. A red-eyed figure wearing a glowing crystal fragment around its neck.

"…Unreason…" Doug Rattmann mutters, clearly to himself, as he picks up a well-used tray of paints from the floor. "…Unreason. The picture is changing…"

And as they watch, Rattmann adds something to the mural: five little figures off to the side; two in purple, one in orange, one in blue, and one… in black, hooded and cloaked.

"…Changed it, you changed it… made it different, made it…"

"Doctor Rattmann," Chell pushes, though she's obviously more than a little taken aback by what they're looking at. "Doctor Rattmann, we need to ask you something."

Rattmann looks at Chell as if only just noticing her. "You…" he breathes. "Oh, it's you! You actualised! Alive and dead at the same time… but you broke the unreason!"

"I… what?" Chell asks, confused.

"You were asleep forever, but not dead!" Rattmann exclaims, gesturing with his paintbrush. "Like the cat, in the box. Unreason. I'm sure that must have pleased her…"

"Her?" Chell repeats, with the faintest tremor in her voice. "You mean… GLaDOS?"

"Yes, her!" Rattmann replies. "Always watching. Always judging. She's gone away, though. She's gone away to be with the cats…"

"…The cats?" Carlos can't help asking, which makes Rattmann look at him in surprise.

"Yes, the cats!" the crazed scientist answers. "So many cats in boxes. Alive and dead at the same time. Then all dead. All dead. For science, she said. For science."

He pushes past them and goes over to one of the side walls, which is covered in shapes and colours but no obvious image yet. Without explaining, he starts to paint a huge symbol over the top; a broad purple eye, with an iris shaped like the symbol of Aperture science.

"The Eye…" he whispers, as he works. "The Eye… and the Aperture. Linked, now. Forever. Entangled, like so much quantum string…"

Dana takes a step forward, and puts a careful hand on Doug Rattmann's shoulder. He turns his head at once, looking at her with those wide, almost haunted eyes.

"…Unreason!" he says. "You have seen it. The other sides. There but not…"

This makes Dana look a little worried, but – taking a deep breath – she doesn't let it stop her. "Doctor Rattmann," she says, "what does this picture mean? What made you draw it? It's our symbol… the symbol of the survivors."

"The Eye and the Aperture…" Rattmann mutters, turning back to his wall and continuing to paint. "Intrinsically linked, now. If one falls, the other falls. But together…"

"Together?" Cecil prompts, as the scientist trails off again.

This makes Rattmann spin to look at him, as if noticing him for the first time. His eyes go wide, and for a moment all he can do is stare, silent and still. Different from the way he's reacted to everyone else.

"…The mirrors lie," he whispers, unblinking. "Watch for thirty-seven. _Watch_. He is not who he seems. They are not who they seem…"

And then, as if snapping out of a trance, Rattmann turns back to his wall once more.

Cecil and Carlos exchange a look, and Carlos can tell from the flicker in his boyfriend's eyes that he's a little unnerved by what's just happened.

"Doctor Rattmann," Chell now says, as if trying to pull everything together before it collapses into a confused mess on the floor. "We need to ask you something. It's very important."

She puts her hand in her pocket and takes out the folded drawing, opening it so Rattmann can see. "You drew a large version of this over two years ago. We need to know what it means. It might be the key to putting all of this right."

The wild-eyed scientist pauses and looks at the picture. For a moment it seems as if he doesn't recognise it, and then his face splits into the strangest little grin. "Unreason," he whispers, but something about his voice seems more lucid now. "Unreason. Uncertainty. Is this it? Is this the day of the scientists?"

"The day of the scientists?" Carlos repeats.

"Yes, of the scientists!" Rattmann says. "First it was cats, but unreason killed the cats. Well. Unreason and _her_. Then it was daughters… and only one is left." He's looking at Chell as he says this, but he doesn't elaborate. "And then… scientists."

"You don't mean… Bring Your Scientist To Work Day?" Cecil asks.

"Yes!" Rattmann exclaims. "Yes, that! Is it that?"

"Well… it was for us, when we left," Cecil tries to explain. "But that was two and a half years ago."

Doug Rattmann smiles and puts a hand on Cecil's arm for a second. "Uncertainty," he whispers. "You can't know it all at once. But if you don't know when you are… it can be any day you want it to be." He points at the copy of his drawing, fingertip tracing the lines of the clock in the centre. "There is a way back…"

"There is?" Carlos says. "How?"

"Uncertainty," Rattmann repeats. "The uncertain time… no, no, the uncertain _clock_. The uncertain clock doesn't know when it is. And if you don't know when it is, it can be any time you want."

They all exchange a deeply confused look.

"…Time doesn't work in Night Vale," Carlos points out, carefully.

"Exactly!" Rattmann exclaims. "Exactly! The more you know one thing, the less you know the other!"

Everyone now looks more confused… except for Carlos, who feels like he might be starting to catch on. Or go insane. The two things can be alarmingly similar at times.

"…Are you talking about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?" he now asks.

"Yes!" Rattmann replies. "Finally, a real scientist. No one else gets it."

"Uh… no one else is here," Chell can't help pointing out.

"Exactly!" Rattmann says again. "All dead. Like cats, when you look in the boxes. Unreason. Uncertainty."

"So… you're saying there's some way for us to travel back through time?" Carlos asks, going for broke.

"Yes!" Rattmann insists. "Yes. The more you know one factor, the more you can't know the other! The less you know time… the more you know when you are!"

"That… doesn't make sense," Cecil says.

"Exactly!" Rattmann repeats. "Uncertainty! The less it makes sense, the more it works!"

"Do you understand any of this?" Chell mutters to Carlos.

"Yes and no," Carlos replies, which only makes Rattmann grin again. "So what do we do?" he asks the other scientist.

"Easy," Rattmann says. "The place is forbidden, so go there. Time doesn't work, so make it. This is the end… and the beginning. To go forward, go back. Complete the loop. His clock is key."

"His clock?" Carlos asks. "Whose clock? None of the clocks are real."

"This one especially," Rattmann answers. "You already know. You know and you don't. Uncertainty."

"I… don't…" Carlos starts out, but Doug Rattmann puts a hand on his arm again, then reaches into his own pocket and pulls out an old, battered flier, handing it to Carlos.

"I always knew where," the other scientist whispers. "So I never knew when."

Carlos looks down at the flier, opening it out so the others can see, and jumping a little when he realises what he's looking at. It's an advert from two and a half years ago: a poster describing a special exhibition.

 _'Visit the Night Vale Museum of Forbidden Technologies!'_ it urges, in bright green and yellow lettering. _'See our all-new special exhibit, for a limited time only… Heisenberg's Uncertainty Clock.'_

And there's a picture: a picture of a clock shaped like a large, old-fashioned mantelpiece clock, but with all its numbers replaced with different, non-sequential phases of the moon. The very same clock from Doug Rattmann's drawing.

"This is it!" Chell exclaims.

"You see?" Rattmann says. "Easy. Time itself will fall. Behold the end and the beginning…"

"We need to get to the Museum of Forbidden Technologies," Carlos says, "and try to find this clock. If we can send ourselves back in time… we can stop this terrible future from happening."

"That… might be a little tricky," Dana tells them. "The museum has been completely locked-down for two years, since shortly after Kevin took out all the time machines so no one could do precisely what we're trying to do. The museum is protected by someone, someone on the inside. No one knows who it is… we just call them the Curator. Whoever they are, they've kept the rest of the museum's exhibits safe, even from Kevin."

"And no one knows who it is?" Cecil asks.

Dana shakes her head. "No. There have been sightings… flashes of a hooded figure, but never for very long."

Cecil stares. "The Curator is one of the hooded figures?"

"We don't know for sure," Dana replies. "But it could be. And if it is… getting in there isn't going to be easy."

"But we have to try," Carlos says. "We have to."

"Don't try," Rattmann whispers. "Don't even try. That's how you'll do it…"

"Uh… we'll bear that in mind," Chell manages. "Before we go… just tell me one thing. I've looked for you so many times and never found you. Never once, no matter how hard I searched. And yet… now we walk in here and run into you in mere moments. Why?"

Doug Rattmann gives her a little smile. "Because I knew," he answers. "Because it told me."

He turns and gestures to the Companion Cube that sits silent and still beneath the picture on the back wall… and only now does Carlos realise that there are _two_ Companion Cubes in the room: the battered one, and the one beneath the picture, which is in much better condition.

"It likes you," Rattmann says, looking at Cecil. "It was sad when you went away, but it hoped you would come back. They never abandon you, you know."

"Is that _my_ Companion Cube?" Cecil asks, understanding.

 _"Yes!"_ the cube squeaks. _"Yes! I waited so long. Waited until you came back. That's how you complete the test. You always go back for your Companion Cube. And when you came back… I told him. Told him to find you…"_

"The cubes always know," Rattmann says, tapping the side of his nose. "Very smart. Mine never let me down. Mine said I should trust yours. So I did." He grins. "Found you."

 _"Now run!"_ the cube says, excitedly. _"Run to the forbidden place! Run and make things right again."_

"What about you?" Cecil asks.

 _"I will wait here,"_ the cube insists. _"I'll be waiting when you come back. And I will watch the pictures change. But… hurry. Time is running out."_

And with that rather ominous warning ringing in all their minds, they bid a confusing farewell to Doug Rattmann and start making their way out of Aperture again. The corridors are still dark and threatening, but they seem strangely less so now. Not when they all know the real danger is overhead.

The end and the beginning. One way or another… that's what comes next.

***

The walk back to Night Vale is long and dark, but it feels different to the walk out. This time… there's a flicker of hope hanging over them, as if they all finally believe they might have a chance. That they might somehow be able to pull this off.

It's a strange thing, hope. Dangerous and unstoppable in equal measure.

As they reach the edge of the town, there's a sudden updraft of warm, desert wind, and the sky overhead erupts with bright purple light. A twisting column of that same light drops from the star-dotted void and slams into the ground in the distance, somewhere in the centre of Night Vale.

Dana gasps in horror and grips Chell's arm. "Not again!" she says.

"What is it?" Cecil asks, moving closer to Carlos.

"It's Kevin," Dana answers. "He… that's what it looks like when he pulls open the walls between dimensions."

"He hasn't done it in months, though," Chell adds, staring up at the spiralling column of light. "Something must have happened."

"Something _did_ happen," comes a familiar voice from nearby. " _They_ happened."

All four of them turn to see a figure leaning on the wall of one of the buildings, just off to the side, watching them from the shadows. It steps out, and at once Cecil can feel the way Carlos reacts, the way he tenses up, halfway between launching forwards and recoiling.

It's Tomas.

" _You_ ," Carlos says, tone bordering on a growl that would be _ridiculously_ hot if they weren't in terrible danger.

"Me," Tomas replies, levelly. "Well, well. It's been a long time. A very long time. I suppose it just feels like yesterday to you."

"It _was_ yesterday to us," Cecil points out.

"What do you want, Tomas?" Carlos demands.

"You don't have to worry about me," his double insists. "I'm a scientist. I'm just here to observe."

"'Just here to observe,'" Chell repeats, eyes narrowing. "Is that what you called it the day Kevin first pulled the dimensions open? 'Observing'? When you were standing at his side watching Night Vale burn?"

Tomas clasps his hands together at hip-height and paces in closer. There's too much ease to the way he moves, and it's unsettling. "Yes," he answers. "Observing. That and trying to calm Kevin down."

"That was _calm_?!" Chell exclaims. "Did you _see_ the things that came through? It took Hiram _days_ to take them out and he was _literally_ an eighteen-foot tall fire-breathing dragon. With five heads!"

"I saw," Tomas replies. "But believe me when I tell you that it could have been worse. I was standing at Kevin's side because I was looking after him. Because I _love_ him."

"But he's a maniac!" Cecil interjects.

"Yes," Tomas says, tone still too level. "But he's _my_ maniac."

"And what about Steve?" Carlos now asks.

The way Tomas' expression falls speaks volumes. "He left us," he answers, softer now. "He and Kevin fell out and he left us. Vanished. Broke Kevin's heart."

"He _has_ one?" Cecil says.

Tomas' eyes narrow a little. "He has one. But it – he – never really recovered from losing Steve. He'd held back until that point, but once Steve was gone… he had no reason to."

The scientist gestures to the town, and to the column of light off in the distance. "Stunning, isn't it? It's amazing what he can do now. I thought that little crystal of his was impressive when he was using it to alter his voice, but since it got supercharged… the things he can do are just unbelievable. I never get tired of watching."

"You monster," Carlos hisses at him. "You're enjoying this? He destroyed our town! Killed all those people!"

"He did," Tomas answers. "But you know what the strangest thing is? He deliberately kept you out of the way. Deliberately zapped you into the future so you'd avoid the worst of it. And this whole time, he's missed you."

"Missed us?!" Cecil exclaims. " _Missed us?!_ When we ran into him earlier he tried to _kill_ me. Technically, for a moment, he _did_ kill me!"

Carlos grips his hand very tight at that, and Cecil is glad of it.

"He over-reacted," Tomas says. "He told me. Says he feels awful about it."

"Well he should have thought about that first!" Carlos insists. "You don't get points for claiming to feel awful after trying to murder someone!"

"You really don't," Chell mutters, a little wryly. "And I should know."

"Harsh," Tomas replies, shaking his head. "Well. He does feel awful. He wouldn't be doing this if he didn't."

"You do realise that this is not a normal reaction?" Cecil tries to point out, as if there were some way he could talk some sense into the situation. As if sense even has a place in this insane world anymore. "Normal people don't _rip open dimensions_ when they're having a bad day. Especially when said bad day involved them temporarily _murdering_ their own double!"

"Nothing about my Kevin is normal," Tomas says, with an almost dreamy flicker in his eyes. "Normal is mundane. Boring. _That_..?" He gestures to the distant column of light. "… _That_ is incredible."

"He'll destroy what's left of Night Vale!" Dana protests, taking a step forward. "We won't be able to fight him off. Won't be able to take down the _things_ that come through."

"Then this is the end," Tomas answers, softly. "But what an end it will be."

"We don't have to listen to this," Carlos throws back. "We're leaving."

They turn and stalk off, and it would be quite a satisfactory exit – all things considered – were it not for the fact that, after a few seconds, Tomas calls out, "…You'll never make it to the museum."

What they ought to have done, Cecil realises, is ignore him and keep walking. To pretend either that he's wrong, or that they're too confident to care. Unfortunately, Tomas' words make them all freeze, glance at each other, and turn back to him.

"What do you mean?" Carlos demands.

"The Museum of Forbidden Technologies," Tomas replies, levelly. "You'll never make it."

"What makes you think we're going there?" Cecil asks, trying to keep his own tone offhand.

"Oh, I have my sources…" Tomas says, with a dark little smile, and he gestures to the shadows nearby… and Cecil realises, with a jolt of shock, that there's someone else lurking in them. Someone they've all missed.

A figure steps into what light there is, staring them all down.

A woman.

A woman in a yellow jumpsuit.

"…Mish?" Chell whispers in horror.

"Chell," her double says, with a slight headtilt. "It's been a long time."

"What happened to you?" Chell asks. "I thought…"

Mish gestures to herself, to her face: the left side of which is streaked with several scars, and a black eyepatch covering her left eye. "You mean this? My facility exploded when I was in it. DORiS _died_ and I… I barely made it out."

"I thought you were dead," Chell whispers. "If I'd known… Mish, if I'd known, I would have looked for you."

"I didn't want you to," Mish replies. "It was a dream, Chell. It was just a dream that we could ever be friends. Just a dream that we could see through all the rivalries surrounding us, that we could just cut through everything and _be_."

"It wasn't a dream," Chell insists, pain writ large across her face. "It was real and it _mattered_."

Mish doesn't reply to this, and instead looks at Dana, her remaining eye narrowing a little. "Who's your new friend?"

"I'm Dana," she answers.

Mish headtilts. "Night Valean?"

"Yes," Dana says.

Now Mish shakes her head. "You shacked up with a Night Valean? GLaDOS would be ashamed of you."

"GLaDOS doesn't have a say anymore," Chell retorts, and though her tone is fierce, she's clearly on the brink of tears at the same time. "She wouldn't listen to me. I had to watch her die because of her own stubbornness, and you know what? It hurt? It hurt worse than anything. And I miss her every second of every day – even though time doesn't work properly here – but I don't live my life by her standards now. I live them by mine."

"Well, lucky for you," Mish replies, sullenly. "I live my life by just one standard now: survival. Because it's all I've got left."

"Then help us!" Dana says, taking a step forward. "We're trying to undo all this. Help us stop it ever happening. Help us make it _right_."

"You can't undo all this," Tomas interjects, levelly. "There are no time machines left in the Museum of Forbidden Technologies… and whatever else you expect to find in there, it won't help you."

 _So you don't know what it is_ , Cecil can't help thinking, though he's careful not to let on.

"You still haven't told us why you think we're going there in the first place," Carlos points out, his tone equally careful.

"There is… was… a man living in the Black Mesa facility," Mish replies. "I never met him, not once, but I knew he was there because he drew pictures on the walls: weird, slightly insane pictures that – in their own strange way – had a habit of coming true."

Cecil and Carlos already know this, of course. They've even seen one of those pictures, but they didn't tell Mish about it at the time, and they're not going to mention it now.

"The day before GLaDOS murdered DORiS and destroyed our facility, I found one of those pictures – his last – drawn on a wall," Mish goes on. "It seemed important, so I drew myself a copy."

She puts her hand in her jumpsuit pocket and pulls out an old, folded piece of paper, opening it out to reveal the picture on it: a clock, shaped like a traditional mantelpiece clock, but with the numbers all replaced by identical symbols of the sun eclipsed by the moon. It's surrounded by confused swirls of orange and blue, and little silhouetted figures clutching their heads as if scared or confused. Across the top is written the word 'uncertainty' and around the clock itself are the words: _'They arrive so they never have to leave… and yet leave they must. The end is the beginning.'_

"…OK, well, that's very interesting…" Carlos says, clearly – at least to Cecil – trying hard not to let on how similar this is to Doug Rattmann's prophetic picture. "But what makes you think this has anything to do with us? Or the museum?"

Mish shrugs. "Angsty told me. It was the last piece of the puzzle. We always knew when… but we never knew _where_."

"…And you're saying the _Angst Cube_ told you?" Chell replies. "You know it's insane, yes?"

Mish shrugs again. "Doesn't mean it's not right."

"And your expressions more than confirm that it is," Tomas adds, with a little smile. "So tell us… what's in the Museum of Forbidden Technologies that can still manipulate time?"

Carlos grasps Cecil's arm, and at once Cecil understands what they have to do now. The only thing left they can do.

"You know where," Carlos replies. "But you'll never know _what_. Run!"

And they do, all four of them launching off as fast as they can, hurtling away along the dark road.

"Stop!" they can hear Tomas shouting. "I'm not done with you!"

"Well, we're done with _you_!" Carlos shouts back.

They run and they run, Tomas and Mish following, and although they've got a slight head start it isn't a lot, and as Cecil glances over his shoulder he knows they won't be able to keep their distance for long.

"Chell!" he calls out. "Can you..?"

"Already on it!" Chell replies, understanding. There's an electric whine and a bolt of light, and a portal appears on the side of a building at the distant end of the street. "This way!" she now says, firing a second portal – an orange one – onto a wall nearby.

They race through it, the strange shift in reality as they do feeling as equally familiar and alien as it always does. The second they're all through, Chell briefly clicks the power off on her portal gun, causing both portals to fade, and preventing their pursuers from coming through after them.

"That's bought us a few seconds, but we need to keep going!" Carlos says. "We have to get to the museum and–"

Up ahead, over the centre of Night Vale, the column of purple light spasms and twists, filling the sky with angry lightning like poison spreading from a wound.

"We're never going to make it through!" Dana exclaims, her eyes wide with horror. "The dimensions are already open. Sooner or later… those _things_ are going to be all over town."

"…Then we get everyone together," Cecil says, understanding at last. "Everyone from the subway. Everyone who's survived this long. We get them all together and…"

He can't quite say it. Not knowing what will undoubtedly happen to a lot of them if they go through with this.

"…And we fight," Dana finishes, softly. "For Night Vale. For _our_ Night Vale. If you and Carlos can get through to the museum… you can go back. Stop all this happening."

"Then we need to get back into the subway," Chell says. "And we need to keep moving. Follow me!"

And so, with the terrible, unavoidable plan slowly forming, they hurry off… towards the Last Stand of Night Vale.

***

"And that's our last hope," Chell is saying. In front of her, a crowd of the survivors – the people of Night Vale – stand listening, taking in her words with serious but determined looks on their faces. "We can keep fighting, keep surviving, but in the end… we can't endure forever. Not like this. But if we stand together one last time, if we get Cecil and Carlos through to the Museum of Forbidden Technologies… we can undo it all. We can put things back the way they were. So what do you say? Who's with me?"

There's a terrible silence as the people look at each other, and then – stepping up beside Chell – Dana raises a hand in the air.

"For Night Vale!" she declares, fierce and brave and wonderful.

"For Night Vale!" the people start to echo, the hope starting to ripple through the crowd like the lightning through the sky outside… but considerably more welcome.

"For Hiram…" Chell hears a woman's voice whisper: a woman she can't see, a woman she's never seen, but a woman she knows lives down here nonetheless.

And Chell has never been prouder of her adoptive town than she is now; standing here in the dim light of the place they've been forced to retreat to, forced to hide in, but ready to make their last stand.

"I love you, you know," Dana whispers to her, taking her hand.

"I know," Chell whispers back.

The people start to disperse, making preparations for what's to come. As they do, Chell goes over to where Cecil and Carlos are standing, off to the side, both of them looking a little guilty.

"Don't even say it," she tells them, with a knowing smile. Once you learn to understand these two, it's pretty easy to read what the pair of them are thinking. "No one has to do this if they don't want to. And getting you through to the museum means we have a chance to save _everyone_. Even… the ones we've already lost."

"And we even have weapons!" Dana adds, hurrying over. "John Peters – you know, the farmer? – he's got a whole collection of scythes and pitchforks stored down here."

"Scythes and pitchforks?" Carlos repeats. "What next, flaming torches?"

"Oh, that's a good idea!" Dana agrees. "I'll go see if I can find us some."

She's running around to stay busy. To keep from thinking about what's going to happen.

Chell understands that.

"Promise me something," she says, tone soft, turning back to Cecil and Carlos once Dana has darted off again.

"Anything," Cecil tells her.

"When you get back, when you make the world right… I know Dana will be lost between the dimensions again, but… keep an eye out for her? And if you can find a way to save her… if you can find a way to bring her home… introduce us? I know I'll be with GLaDOS, but… I still want her in my life."

Cecil grips her hand and nods. "We promise," he answers. "We text pretty often, so we won’t lose touch. Or hope."

Chell nods too. "Good. And thank you."

They pause for a moment, the three of them standing watching as the survivors of Night Vale prepare to head above ground.

"You ever think about that day we first met?" Carlos asks her. "When you turned up in my lab, not even able to speak audibly, and completely freaked me out?"

Chell laughs a little. "I do. That was… quite a day."

And it led to so much. To her going home to Aperture. Re-uniting with GLaDOS. Making friends with her own alternate double. To miniature stars and paradoxes and trips through the co-operative testing tracks that she'll never forget.

To war. To torn-open dimensions and survivors in the underground. To a woman she loves and yet can only save by losing.

"You ever regret any of it?" Carlos now asks.

Chell looks at him, at both of them, knowing that her eyes are full of joy and sorrow at the same time and that they will understand completely.

"Not one second," she whispers.

***

Through the darkness of a ceaseless night, lit only by the deadly purple column up ahead, the people walk through the otherwise deserted streets.

Cecil still can't quite believe it's come to this. To walking with Carlos at his side, gripping his arm, and Chell and Dana close by, leading the people of Night Vale towards a danger that defies description.

He's just a radio broadcaster. Admittedly, a radio broadcaster with a brilliant scientist boyfriend who occasionally drags him into all sorts of incredible scrapes and schemes, but… a radio broadcaster nonetheless.

A journalist. Though this is one story he thinks he'll never tell. Or… not completely, at least.

They're getting closer to the museum, and in the darkness all around, they know they can see movement. Something is out there – some _things_ – and for some reason, the attack hasn't started yet. It… they… are biding their time.

And that's probably for the best. The distant shapes aren't even remotely human.

They turn a corner, and up ahead… they can see it. The Museum of Forbidden Technologies.

But they're not the first ones here. Standing in the street – between them and the steps leading up into the grand doorway of the neo-classical building beyond – are four figures: Kevin, Tomas, Mish… and, helpfully enough, Azatothoth the Bloodthirsty.

"Oh, great," Carlos mutters, as he and Cecil step away from the crowd to talk with their doubles, Chell and Dana following a little distance behind. "Just what we need. Not just Kevin, but his wretched demon as well."

"You made it!" Kevin exclaims. "And you brought friends! This is just… perfect. I'm so pleased to see you again. How do you like what I've done with the place?"

"Considering that we're standing amidst the burnt-out remains of our town, lit by a column of unholy energy and with _things_ moving about in the shadows that defy description…. I'd say we're not all that fond of it," Cecil manages. Talking to Kevin always makes him uneasy, but right now – with that alternate-reality crystal still glowing ceaselessly around his neck – it's even more unsettling. Doubly-so because their last conversation literally ended in Cecil's (albeit brief) death.

"Awwww, Cecil, you have no sense of fun!" Kevin exclaims. "You do apparently have a plan, though. My Tomas told me all about it. Just what _is_ in this old museum that has you so interested?"

" _Science_ ," Carlos replies. "And it's no concern of yours."

Kevin claps a hand over his chest. The long black robe makes this gesture significantly more emotive, and thereby terrifying. "Oh, Carlos, beautiful Carlos, of course it's my concern. _Everything_ you do is my concern. Especially now. And it's sweet that you two think you can stop me… you and your little friend from Aperture, and the girl from another dimension… so sweet. And all that's left of Night Vale. Do they know you've brought them here to die?"

"Not to die," Cecil retorts. "To be saved."

"Indeed?" Kevin says, with an arched look. "Azatothoth?"

"Hm?" the demon rumbles, almost idly.

"Do that thing you do with the fireball. Just a small one. So they know what they're up against."

"With pleasure," Azatothoth replies.

And before they can protest, Kevin's soul-bound demon has taken a step back, raised his sword into the air, and let out a roar that sounds like the hinges on the gates of Hell catching on something sharp. A fireball erupts out of midair and slams into the crowd, causing a lot of panicked screams and hurried movement… though, to their eternal credit, the people of Night Vale do not flee. Do not scatter.

They stand firm.

"Oooh, did you give them a pep talk?" Kevin says to Cecil, eyes alight with something that's halfway between admiration and scorn.

"Actually, _I_ did," Chell interrupts.

"You did?" Kevin replies. "My, my. It must have been _some_ pep talk."

"It _was_ ," Dana interjects.

"Awww, you Night Valeans are so _cute_ when you get all feisty," Kevin says, with only the barest flicker of irritation in his tone. "Azzie? Another fireball. Bigger this time."

Azatothoth complies with a wicked grin: apparently he and Kevin get along much better with things as they currently are. It is certainly an arrangement more befitting a demon from an untold infernal dimension. The fireball rockets through the air, but this time the crowd of people are prepared and they move out of the way quicker. The casualties are minimal… and there's a lot more furious glares turned in Kevin's direction.

"I am impressed," Kevin tells them, applauding a little. "Very impressed. Well, then, we'll dispense with the pleasantries and cut to the chase. Ladies, gentlemen… this is the end. It's been a wild ride, but – let's face it – what chance did you ever stand?"

"He does have a point," Tomas chips in. "But, hey… we'll miss you. As I'm sure you'll miss us."

"Not if we aim properly!" Mish interjects, very suddenly, and Cecil has just a second to realise that – through all of this – Mish has been tapping something out against her arm. Something that he's missed… but someone else hasn't. "Chell, now!"

With lightning-fast speed, Chell fires a portal into the wall of a building some distance away, then shoots a second one directly under Kevin's feet. He falls through at once – with a sudden shout of shock – despite Tomas' attempt to grab hold of him.

"Whose side are you even _on_?!" Tomas exclaims, staring wildly at Mish.

Mish shrugs. "Whoever's seems most interesting at the time," she answers, with a grin. "You know me… I just go with the flow."

Tomas glares at her, and then jumps through the portal after his boyfriend. There's a second of confusion, and then – from the corner of the square where Kevin and Tomas are now scrambling to their feet – Kevin gives a shout.

" _Attack!_ "

And all hell – perhaps quite literally – breaks loose. The terrifying shapes erupt from the darkness: creatures of unimaginable horror, with more horns and tendrils and eyes than seems entirely reasonable. As they do, the people of Night Vale brandish their collection of weapons and sharpened farming implements, and charge at the trans-dimensional monstrosities surrounding them.

Cecil can hardly look, but he doesn't have long to worry about it because at that point Azatothoth the Bloodthirsty gives another roar and charges at them, huge sword raised above his head… but before he can get close, there's another flash of light and a portal appears beneath him, instantly causing him to fall on top of Kevin on the far side of the square and eliciting some language that Cecil has never heard his double use before.

But now… the way to the museum is clear.

"Run!" Chell urges, gesturing at it. "Both of you. Run! We'll hold them off out here."

"Thank you," Cecil can't help saying. "All of you. All _three_ of you."

"You're welcome, now run!" Dana says. "Go! Go put this right!"

And though it seems somehow terrible to leave everyone… it's the only way. Not letting go of each other, Cecil and Carlos start to run, hurtling as fast as they can towards the steps of the museum.

And the only way out of this.

***

When the two men are gone, Chell and Dana turn to Mish.

"I'm still cross with you," the yellow-clad woman points out. "But not cross enough to let this madness continue. So… let's do this insane thing!"

And with one last look back, she charges fearlessly into the fray, leaving Chell and Dana alone.

They glance at each other.

"This is it," Chell says.

"Yep," Dana manages. She's scared – of course she's scared – but at the same time… it's as if everything is slowing down. As if the world itself is screeching to a halt and preparing to turn in a whole new direction.

She looks up… and through the clouds, the full moon appears in the night sky, glittering brighter than the lightning. A moon no one in Night Vale has seen this way in a long, long time.

Dana smiles. "We're going to win," she whispers. "Even if we lose… we're going to win."

"I know," Chell replies. "And whatever happens when the world goes back to the way it was… I don't regret any of this. Not us. Not you."

"I know," Dana echoes. "Now, let's do this… for Aperture."

"And for Night Vale," Chell says.

They smile. They grip hands.

And they charge.

***

The battle may be raging outside, but the Museum of Forbidden Technologies still somehow seems quiet as the grave. It’s cold and dark, and creepy in its own special way, as Cecil and Carlos head through the entrance hall and into the first room of the permanent exhibition.

There's plenty of things in here – all covered in thick burlap, of course – and Cecil finds himself wondering how they're going to work out where Heisenberg's Uncertainty Clock actually _is_.

"Maybe there's a map or something," he whispers, not quite daring to raise his voice.

"I don't think the former owners of this place went in for explanatory maps," Carlos replies, just as softly. "They did have guidebooks, though… maybe one of those would be helpful…"

"We could always ask the mysterious 'Curator,'" Cecil suggests, with the barest flicker of a grin.

 _"You should be careful what you wish for, Cecil Palmer,"_ comes a voice from a little way behind them; a voice resonant with danger and threat and, at the same time… a flicker of something else as well.

They both turn at once, to see a figure standing in the doorway they walked through moments earlier: a figure completely hidden by a long, hooded robe. It – he? – starts to advance slowly towards them, and Cecil feels his breath catch as he starts to wonder… is this one of _the_ hooded figures? Did one of them survive what happened to the Dog Park and take up residence here? Or… were they always here, guarding the forbidden technologies within the museum?

Only… as the figure gets closer, it becomes clear that it's somewhat shorter than Cecil would have expected. Night Vale does indeed have many hooded figures of all types, but on the whole they've always had certain things in common: hooded robes, a menacing edge… and a tendency towards height.

The individual stops after a moment, staring at them from beneath the depths of its thick, black cowl.

"…Forgive the obvious line, but aren't you a little short for a hooded figure?" Carlos asks.

Even though none of the figure's face is remotely visible, Cecil is sure it's narrowing its eyes at them.

 _"I am as tall as I need to be,"_ it insists. _"Why are you here?"_

"Are you the Curator?" Cecil asks. "We need your help. We're looking for something. Also… are you speaking through a _voice modulator_?"

He can see it, now: that the hooded figure has been holding something up near its mouth, hidden in the folds of its voluminous sleeves, and as he looks more carefully he's sure it's a voice modulator of some form.

"You have _no_ sense of drama!" the figure exclaims, in its normal voice… and the instant it does, Cecil understands. And narrows his own eyes in response.

"You!" he declares.

"Is that..?" Carlos starts out, but before he can say any more the figure pockets the voice modulator and lowers its hood.

" _Steve Carlsberg_!" Cecil exclaims.

Steve glares back at them, and his eyes are indeed narrowed. "Yes. But don't go shouting about it, I'm trying to keep a low profile here! Trust _you_ to come barging in and revealing all my secrets to anyone who might be listening!"

" _You're_ the Curator?" Carlos says, before Cecil can reply.

"Yes," Steve answers. "I am the Curator. Seemed a sensible enough move, given that I'm the only person in town who really knows what all this stuff is for – because of my _research_ – and… well, this was the only place I could hide from Kevin. So here I am."

"He can't find you here?" Carlos asks.

Steve shakes his head, and there's a flicker in his eyes that Cecil has never seen before, though he's not going to dignify it with a comment. "He can't get in," Steve answers. "When the City Council founded this museum, they installed a top-notch security system that they got from their friends in the Freemasons, which prevents anyone who isn't Night Valean from getting in through the door. They thought that was the best way to protect the exhibits."

"It let me in," Carlos points out.

"So it did," Steve replies. "Well, congratulations. You've naturalised. Given that you did play a pivotal role in the destruction of space and time as we know it, that isn't really a surprise."

"Hey!" Cecil retorts. "We didn't do any of this! It's not our fault one of _your_ boyfriends went insane with power and started doing all those terrible things."

"He is _not_ my boyfriend," Steve insists. "Neither of them are. Not anymore. Not after what they _did_. And _you_ … I had to wait two and a half years to catch up with _you_. Kevin told me what he'd done, when he'd sent you. 6-16. Only he would think that was funny! So I warned that former intern of yours. Dana. I told her when you'd reappear. And I knew that – sooner or later – you'd end up here."

"And then what?" Cecil says. "You just sat around and waited for us to walk through the door?"

Steve's eyes narrow even further. "It was safer than the alternatives! Trust you to _completely_ miss the point. Now, do you want to stand here arguing or do you want to undo this horrible reality and put things back the way they're supposed to be?"

"We want to put things back the way they're supposed to be," Carlos replies. "Do you… do you know what we're here to find?"

"Of course I do," Steve snaps. "Don't you get it? I'm the only one who's known it all, all along. I knew where, I knew when, and I knew _what_. Now… follow me."

Opting not to argue – even though it's so _hard_ not to argue with the man because he's such a _jerk_ – Cecil nods, and he and Carlos set off after Steve, deeper into the museum. Everywhere they turn, they're faced with more weird and ominous things, utterly shrouded in thick burlap, and accompanied by wholly redacted explanatory signs.

"You know, we could get away with actually looking at some of this stuff," he mutters to Carlos, as they walk. "There's supposedly some _amazing_ things in here."

"I know," Carlos replies. "They've got Tesla's infinite energy source somewhere and it would be such a _privilege_ to see it, even if we couldn't ever use it. The guy was a genius. But… we probably shouldn't touch any of it, much as that goes against everything a scientist stands for. I think reality is broken enough already."

"I think you're right," Cecil agrees, and grips his hand tighter.

After a few moments – and a broad flight of stairs – they enter one of the side rooms that houses temporary exhibits. Steve leads them down to the far end, where something stands on a plinth, casting strange shadows in the moonlight filtering in through a high window.

"Moonlight?" Carlos whispers. "That's got to be significant…"

"Oh, it is," Steve tells him. "The moon hasn't shone like that since the pair of you disappeared, and now it's appeared twice in the same night. So it's either very, very good news… or very, _very_ bad news."

"I'm… going with good news," Cecil says, hopefully.

"You _would_ ," Steve scowls. "You know, your life would be much easier if you were less of a dreamy idealist and more of a _realist_. Then maybe you wouldn't need _me_ to save you every time you get into these insane situations."

"That was _one time_!" Cecil retorts. "And that was only because you don't have a double!"

"Nah-ah," Steve insists. " _Deus Ex Steve_. That's how you solve these things. Deus Ex Steve!"

"…Can we maybe get on with this?" Carlos interjects, before Cecil can reply.

"…Fine," Steve glowers. "So here it is: the thing you've been looking for. The one way to undo this whole mess that is _so_ your fault really…"

"Steve!"

"…Behold!" And he pulls back the burlap. "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Clock!"

And there it stands, an ornate clock roughly one metre high, set on a pedestal. It's made of dark wood and shaped like an old-fashioned mantelpiece clock – just like in all the pictures – and instead of numbers, its shimmering silver face is circled with identical images of the eclipsed sun… except, as they get closer, the symbols change, becoming non-sequential phases of the moon.

"Whoa…" Carlos breathes. "That's… definitely the weirdest clock I've seen in Night Vale. And I've seen a _lot_ of clocks."

"For science," Cecil says to Steve, by way of both an explanation and an expression of pride in his brilliant scientist boyfriend.

"How does it work?" Carlos asks. "Does anyone know?"

"The exact mechanics of it… not a clue," Steve admits. "I wanted to study it more myself, but there's next to nothing about it on the internet and I didn't dare take it apart or even touch it too often, to be honest. But the moment I realised it was here, I knew it was the only way to stop this terrible future from happening. And I knew Night Vale's foremost clock expert would be able to work out what to do with it."

Carlos takes a step closer, staring at the clock and immediately going into full science mode. It's always wonderful to watch, even if the world may still be ending outside.

"Well… it's Heisenberg's Uncertainty Clock, so it doesn't run on normal time…" he starts out. "Which I guess means it must be _quite_ at home here in Night Vale."

"What _does_ it run on?" Cecil asks.

Steve gives a little shrug. "I risked opening the back, once, just to see. There's nothing in there apart from two blue crystals on brass pins that continually orbit each other. Like a miniature orrery."

"…Wait, _blue_ crystals in _Heisenberg's_ Uncertainty Clock?" Cecil interjects, suspiciously. "Is this a _Breaking Bad_ thing?"

"No," Steve insists, glowering again. "The universe just has a sense of humour, is all."

"Shame," Cecil replies. "I miss that show…"

Steve glowers more. "Could you maybe focus? World ending, and all?"

"Sorry," Cecil says, but considering the subtle grin he's getting from Carlos, he doesn't have to be all that sorry really. He does, however, let his brilliant scientist boyfriend start to focus again.

"So… it doesn't run on anything normal – imagine my surprise – and it doesn't have a normal clock face," Carlos goes on, pacing slowly around it. "The face even _changed_ when we got close to it, which makes me think it's reacting to events in some way. But… in the end, it all comes down to the uncertainty principle. We can't know everything at once. We know when we are, so if this thing really can transport us through time… we can't know where we're going."

"…But we _don't_ know when we are!" Cecil exclaims. "You're always saying it: time doesn't work in Night Vale. If that's true… we _never_ really know when we are!"

"…So if we _don't_ know when we are…"

"…We _can_ know when we're going, and…"

They both stare at each other. "You're a genius!" they exclaim, in unison.

Steve facepalms. "Could you maybe be unnecessarily adorable later? I don't know how much more of this dark and terrible future I can take and I've been stuck in it considerably longer than either of you."

"When do we go to, then?" Cecil asks, studiously ignoring Steve. "We need to stop Kevin zapping us into this future in the first place, and…"

"…No," Carlos says. "We can't. We have to make sure he does, or it turns into another massive paradox. It's going to be bad enough as it is, given that we're going to stop this future from ever happening despite the fact that we have to be _in_ it in order to do so, but we'll just have to hope Night Vale can handle it. But if we go so far as to stop ourselves ever even ending up here… seriously, all of spacetime, in all directions. Just… gone."

This does sound bad. Cecil nods. "So… what do we do?"

"We go back to an earlier point during Bring Your Scientist To Work Day," Carlos replies. "We'll have to stay hidden so we don't break the timeline any worse, and we need to find some way to get to… Radon Canyon." He shudders. "That place is lethal. Only Kevin would think it was _funny_ to send you out there."

"What about using the Companion Cube again?" Cecil suggests. "It protected me before."

"I know, but we can't," Carlos says. "We can't use the Companion Cube or your car because _you_ – the other you – will need them to get out to Radon Canyon in the first place, to meet me. The other me. So we have to find another way to protect us both." He sighs. "I have some haz-mat suits at my place. For emergencies. We'll have to pick them up without running into our past selves."

"All right," Cecil replies. "So… how do we get back?"

"I would go with touching it," Steve suggests, with a little eyeroll. "Sooner or later, these situations require you to touch things you're not supposed to. Like mystical clocks. Or vials of teslonium."

Cecil and Carlos exchange a look. If they're going to do this… they have to try.

They step up to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Clock, and as they do the shimmering face starts to shift again: still showing the non-sequential phases of the moon, but the order changing every few seconds.

"Do try not to break reality anymore," Steve says, standing back. "Some of us have better things to do than hang around waiting for you to fix it."

"…We'll keep that in mind, Steve," Cecil answers, dryly.

"Here goes nothing…" Carlos whispers, and he and Cecil both lay a palm on the top of the clock. For a few seconds, 'nothing' seems to be the operative word… and then the hands on the clock face start to spin, and spin, and…

There's an unearthly roar outside.

The sound of an explosion.

A burst of yellow and green light.

And then all of reality dissolves and folds in on itself at the same instant.

***

Slowly – very, very slowly – Cecil opens his eyes. He's lying on… the floor? Yes, the floor. The carpet is familiar… as is the person lying on top of him.

"…Did we..?" Carlos murmurs, and then scrambles back. "Sorry. I think I fell on you."

"Don't apologise," Cecil manages, trying to sit up. "I don't think time travel is ever an easy process."

"Not the way we do it," Carlos agrees.

They both scramble to their feet, looking around. They're in Carlos' living room, and it's daytime. Warm, brilliant sunlight is pouring in through the window, so real and welcome that, for a second, they just stare at it as if seeing it for the first time ever.

"…Did we make it?" Cecil dares to ask.

Carlos glances at the clock on the wall. "Mid-afternoon," he says. "If this is the right day… we should be on the air right now. Interviewing GLaDOS."

He hurries into his bedroom, Cecil following close by, and clicks his radio on.

 _"…so then she jumped over the pit just in time to avoid the beam, and instead it disintegrated a whole section of the floor and part of the door…"_ comes GLaDOS' voice, and Cecil doesn't think he's ever been so glad to hear her. _"And I told her: this isn't facilitating my furtherance of science! Sometimes you humans are just so unhelpful…"_

Carlos clicks the radio off again, and grins. "We made it," he says. "We made it back. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Clock… worked. Somehow. I don't understand it, but… it did."

"What now?" Cecil asks.

"We find those haz-mat suits and we wait for everything to happen," Carlos replies. "We… have to let Kevin abduct me and take me out into the desert, and we have to let you get that text and go out after me with the Companion Cube. But we mustn't go out too early, or we increase the risk of crossing over with ourselves. We can't hide out here, because _I'm_ going to be back in an hour or so, and we can't go to your place because you'll turn up to get the Companion Cube later on. And we're not going to be able to use your car because you'll need it to get out to Radon Canyon."

This makes Cecil grin a little, and put a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder. "Well, then, Carlos, love of my life… this time, you're going to have to drive."

"Gladly," Carlos replies, with a grin of his own. "There's just one problem. My car isn't here yet. I've still got it."

"…Oh this is hurting my head…" Cecil mutters, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "This is going to end with us hiding in the bushes in your garden, isn't it?"

"No," Carlos insists. "No."

It does.

***

In the end, they have to hide for quite a while. They can't take Carlos' car whilst his past self is around, which means they're left with the unwelcome prospect of having to wait until Kevin has turned up to abduct him before they can move.

It's a _very_ unwelcome prospect. Cecil can hardly bear the thought of not being able to intervene, even though Carlos tells him, over and over, that it will likely rip apart spacetime if he does.

It almost seems worth the risk.

Eventually, Carlos' past self comes home, parking up outside and going indoors. A little while later… a second car pulls up. A car just like Cecil's, except that it's black.

Kevin's car.

It's followed almost immediately by an all-too-familiar tan Corolla, which pulls up a little way off. Steve Carlsberg clambers out and hurries over, just as Kevin and Tomas climb out of the first car. And Kevin is – as before – dressed identically to Cecil, which means he must have been watching them earlier in the day.

It's more than a little unsettling.

"Right," Kevin says. "Here goes nothing. If this works, the two of you follow us in Steve's car. If it doesn't… Tomas, I might need a hand. Steve, whatever happens, you need to look after the Strex Core."

"Don't you worry," Steve tells him. "My car's completely shielded from government tracking. No matter what, we'll make it out there."

Kevin grins, and pulls Steve in to kiss, before gripping Tomas' arm. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck."

"Good luck!"

Kevin pauses, grasping the crystal shard hanging around his neck for a second, and then asks, "…How does that sound?" And his voice is now identical to Cecil's, and… OK, even knowing it was going to happen doesn't quite prepare Cecil for how _weird_ it is.

Carlos grips his arm. Good thing, too, because he almost charges out after his double without thinking.

"Perfect!" Tomas says to Kevin, leaning in to tuck the little crystal under his boyfriend's shirt, out of sight.

"Freaky as hell," Steve adds. "But just right."

"All right," Kevin says, in Cecil's voice but with that little touch of over-brightness that's so very _him_. "Here we go…"

And in a moment, he's inside the house. Once he's gone, Steve kisses Tomas on the cheek and they both hurry off to his car, so they're out of the way.

"We could stop this," Cecil whispers to Carlos. "We could. I don't like the thought of him being in there with you…"

"I know," Carlos whispers back, gripping his arm again. "But we can't. We're already risking untold damage to the timeline. Anything more and we'll unmake the universe."

It still almost feels like a risk worth taking.

After a few moments, the door to Carlos' apartment opens and Kevin staggers out. He waves a little frantically, making Tomas and Steve immediately leap back out of Steve's car and hurry over, in time to see Kevin drop to his knees.

"Are you all right?" Tomas asks, urgently, throwing himself down beside his boyfriend and putting a hand on his chest.

"Uh… yeah… yeah…" Kevin manages. His voice is back to normal and he looks like he's about to pass out. "Carlos saw through me almost immediately. He's so _darnedly_ smart. I had no choice but to use the crystal to knock him out completely, but it… _wow_ , I feel dizzy…"

"It's all right, Kev, it's all right, we've got you," Tomas reassures him. "Steve and I will go get Carlos and then I'll drive whilst you recover."

Kevin reaches to grip one of Tomas' hands, and one of Steve's. "I'm so lucky to have you both."

"And we're so lucky to have you," Tomas replies.

"You OK here for a moment?" Steve asks.

"Yeah, don't worry, go get Carlos," Kevin tells them. "Be careful with him."

Tomas claps a hand to his chest. "With my own double? I wouldn't be anything else."

He and Steve head inside, and re-emerge moments later carrying Carlos' unconscious past self between them… and oh, _oh_ , it really is hard not to launch forwards at that. Cecil can hardly think, and it's only the present Carlos' hand on his arm that stops him from moving.

They lay the past Carlos on the back set of Kevin's car – with obvious care, which just makes it even more unnerving – and shut the door, before going over to Kevin, who is still on his knees on the front lawn.

"Come on, you," Tomas says, as they help him up, supporting him between them.

Once Kevin is in the passenger seat, Tomas turns back to Steve. "We'll see you out in the desert. You watch that core."

"You watch our Kevin," Steve replies.

They nod, grip hands, and in moments they're both driving off: Tomas leading the way at the wheel of Kevin's car, and Steve following along behind.

When they're gone, Cecil and Carlos slowly emerge from the bushes. Both of them are in some sort of shock, having had to watch all that, but they don't have time to dwell on it now.

"At least no one else saw," Carlos murmurs, arms wrapped around himself a little defensively.

"Uh… about that…" Cecil manages.

He points over towards Big Rico's Pizza, which is the next lot along. Standing in the side window, staring wide-eyed and apparently lost for words, is Big Rico himself. He points at them, then at the lab, and then at the road that the two cars have just set off down. And then he goes back to staring.

"…I think we might need to explain a thing or two to Rico when this is over," Carlos says.

"I fear you may be right," Cecil agrees. "But for now… we need to get those haz-mat suits of yours, and head off… to Radon Canyon."

Carlos shudders. "I really don't like that place."

And, for once, Cecil has to agree. But the alternatives? They're far worse.

***

It's dark, but Radon Canyon glows ceaselessly green in the starry night. Car parked a little way off, and their haz-mat suits on, Cecil and Carlos climb carefully up the edge of a low ridge, overlooking the exit from Aperture Science.

It's been there a little while now, secluded within the protective bubble cast by the Companion Cube that Cecil's past self has brought with him. He parks close to the lone, metal shack at the bottom of Radon Canyon, then puts the Companion Cube on the roof of his car and sits on the hood, waiting.

Cecil remembers it – remembers doing all of it – and yet it's incredibly strange to watch. Having an alternate double is one thing, but being faced with his own past self?

Well. If nothing else, at least this one isn't pure evil.

"Isn't your car going to get horribly irradiated?" Cecil asks, glancing sideways at Carlos.

"It should be all right," Carlos answers. "Radon is most dangerous when inhaled – hence the haz-mat suits – so I should probably have some serious work done on the air-con once all this is over. To be honest, I've never had to decontaminate a vehicle before, but I'm sure it will be an interesting learning experience for me. And, yes, I'll be careful. You might have to drive me around for the next few days, though."

Cecil grins a little. "Gladly. And let's not forget, you are one of life's passengers at heart."

Carlos grins back at him. "It's so true."

They pause, turning their attention back to the canyon floor.

"What now?" Cecil asks.

"We need to stay here," Carlos replies, softly. "We mustn't make a move until Kevin has sent us both forward in time."

"And then?"

"Then we tackle him. Get that crystal off him somehow. Make sure he can't create that awful future."

"But… Carlos, I still don't get it. If Kevin doesn't cause that future, how can we have been zapped to it? And if we aren't zapped to it, how do we get back here to stop it all happening?"

"Exactly," Carlos replies. "Paradox. Now do you see why the universe reacts badly to them?"

"Yes," Cecil says. "I really do."

He tries not to think about it too much, because it makes his head hurt.

"One other thing I have to ask," he says, softly, as they wait. "GLaDOS."

"What about her?" Carlos replies.

"Well, in the future… she and DORiS had gone to war with each other. How do we stop that from happening?"

"From what Chell and Dana said, that was all because Kevin went power-mad, which rubbed off on DORiS, and that in turn wound up GLaDOS. So… if we stop Kevin, then none of it will happen. Hopefully."

"That's… good to know."

It really is. And it makes what they're about to do even more crucial.

Eventually there's movement down in the protective bubble, as Carlos and Kevin emerge from Aperture. There's more movement, and talking, and then… then the fight breaks out.

"Come on," Carlos whispers. "We have to be ready to grab Kevin as soon as he's zapped us forwards…"

So they slip back down the ridge, even as the fight goes on. They can hear their own voices and it's still _weird_ , and it's only the pressure of the moment that stops Cecil dwelling on it even more.

Well. That and the swirling mist that fills the entire canyon with soft, green light. That's rather distracting too.

They're close by – but still out of sight – when Kevin is thrown out of the protective bubble, landing on the rocky floor just beyond it. The instant he lands, the glowing flares up: the crystal at his neck starting to emit vibrant, ice-blue light.

He rises, he speaks, they speak… and, seemingly faster than before, Kevin points at their past selves, and they vanish.

The second they're gone – the _second_ – Carlos leaps to his feet. "Now!" he shouts.

He and Cecil race forward at once, grabbing hold of Kevin – who is still glowing quite alarmingly – and bowling him back into the protective bubble.

"What?!" Kevin exclaims, reaching for the crystal again, but before he can get hold of it, Cecil's palm has closed around it instead.

He doesn't know where the idea comes from. He doesn't even know how he does it. He just concentrates on the thought that the crystal is powerless. Nothing more than a shard of glass.

And somehow… it works. Somehow… he alters reality to make the crystal de-power itself.

Whether or not this constitutes another miniature paradox, he's not quite sure. But the universe doesn't end, so he opts not to worry about it for now.

In the commotion, Kevin finally manages to throw them off and back away, though – notably – he stays inside the bubble this time. Cecil and Carlos reach to pull off the hoods of their haz-mat suits, and as they do, Kevin's expression breaks into one of complete, utter surprise… which is just so very, very satisfying.

"…You?!" he gasps. "But… how?"

" _Science_ ," they both reply at once.

Kevin backs off a little further, grasping the crystal around his neck for a moment but letting go again when it becomes clear he can't do anything with it now. "I don't understand," he mutters. "I zapped you into the future. June 2016. It was going to be so perfect!"

"It was anything but," Cecil replies. "You did it. You zapped us there. Zapped us into a horrible, dark future where you'd pretty much destroyed the world. Certainly destroyed Night Vale. How could you do that? How could you do something so awful?"

"I didn't!" Kevin protests. "I haven't! I haven't done a thing. You can't get mad with me over something I did in an alternate future."

Cecil momentarily loses the ability to form sentences at this, and it falls to Carlos to speak instead. "You still did it. Just not in this reality. And you _did_ abduct me _and_ try to kill Cecil with deadly radiation, and we're not letting you off the hook over that, either!"

Kevin claps a hand over his chest. "Wow, you are so _hot_ when you get like this."

"Kevin!" Cecil exclaims, but his double still doesn't look all that reticent.

"…Are you _quite_ done up there?" comes a familiar voice from the stairwell.

They head open to the metal shack, the door of which still stands open.

"…GLaDOS?" Carlos tries. "Is that you?"

"Of course it's me," she answers. "Who else would it be? Are you done with all your manly wrestling now?"

"That was _not_ manly wrestling, it was self-defence!" Cecil insists, though he's aware there might be a little guilty flicker in his tone as he does.

"Whatever you say, Mr Radio Broadcaster," GLaDOS replies, dryly. "Well. I hope everyone has learned a valuable lesson today."

"Uhm… forgive me for asking the blatantly obvious, but aren't you supposed to be evil now?" Carlos says.

"Hm?" GLaDOS answers. "Oh, you mean that core you so _kindly_ attached to me, you devious and flammable man?"

"…Yes, that…" Carlos mutters, guiltily. "You went crazy. Dropped us down a pit. Spent two hours trying to mash us with spike plates. Remember?"

"Of course I remember," GLaDOS tells him. "That was such fun. I hate to break it to you, though… actually, no, I'm enjoying breaking it to you very much… but that wasn't because of the core."

"It… wasn't?" Kevin manages. He looks like he's suddenly having a very bad night.

"Oh no," GLaDOS answers, easily. "It worked for… I don't know, maybe ten seconds? I'd deactivated it long before I even dropped you down that pit. I'd know Wheatley's handiwork anywhere. That little idiot couldn't build a decent personality core with a full schematic and Cave Johnson himself to help!"

"But… but you tried to kill us!" Kevin says, voice about an octave higher than usual. "With spike plates! We nearly died!"

"Yeah… that really _was_ fun, wasn't it?" GLaDOS says. "You did invade my facility and try to attack me, after all. I thought I was due at least a couple of hours of terrifying mortal peril. I would have drawn it out for longer – certainly long enough to kill at least one of you – but then I realised Cecil was sitting out here, and I remembered you'd said he was coming, and I was intrigued. So I decided to direct you up to find out what happened. And I've got to tell you… it was worth it for the looks on your faces alone."

"But… but my core! My Strex Core!"

"Kevin, if you want to attack me with personality cores, here's a hint," GLaDOS goes on, flatly. "Don't let Wheatley build them for you. He is _literally_ the biggest idiot who ever lived."

"Words _hurt_ , you know," Kevin says, sullenly, folding his arms.

"Indeed they do," GLaDOS answers. "Spike plates hurt more, though. So don't any of you even _think_ about coming back in here."

And she slams the door before any of them can get another word out.

Silence descends. It's unbelievably awkward.

"Well," Cecil says, finally. "I think it's time we got out of this place before things get any worse. Or weirder."

"Or we break spacetime again," Carlos adds, looking accusingly at Kevin.

"Hey!" he protests. "That wasn't me!"

"It was so you," Cecil says, eyes narrowed. "It was _so_ you."

"We'll have to go in separate cars," Carlos points out. "We've got both of them now and I'm worried about what the radiation is doing to mine."

"Good point," Cecil agrees, but before he can say any more, Kevin has given a little wave.

"Uh… could I trouble one of you lovely gentlemen for a lift?" he asks.

"No!" Cecil answers.

"Absolutely not!" Carlos adds.

Kevin pouts. "So, what, you're going to leave me here with nothing but a de-powered alternate reality crystal to get melted by radiation?"

"Yes!" Cecil declares, but Carlos puts a hand on his arm.

"You… know we sort of can't, right?" he says.

Cecil sighs. "I know. I know. Fine." He looks at his double. "Get in before I change my mind."

Kevin bounces on his heels. "I knew you wouldn't let me down!"

***

Despite Cecil's initial insistence that he's just going to leave Kevin outside Radon Canyon, he somehow still ends up agreeing to drive the man up to Steve Carlsberg's house.

It's a very awkward trip. Carlos is following on behind in his own car – saved, for once, from having to listen to Kevin talk – and the Companion Cube sits on the back seat of Cecil's car, quiet and still apart from the occasional little squeak.

"So you really ended up in a dark future?" Kevin says. "It worked?"

"Oh, it worked," Cecil replies, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "The town was a wreck, the survivors were living in the subway, and both GLaDOS and DORiS were dead. And you kept ripping open the walls between dimensions and letting in hideous _things_ to attack people."

"Whoa," Kevin breathes. "That's… dark. I really did all that?"

"Yes, Kevin, you really did all that."

"It certainly is impressive…"

"It is _not_ impressive, it is _insane_! And then you _killed_ me…"

"…I _what_?!" Kevin exclaims.

"You killed me."

"I'd never do that!"

"Well, you did. Carlos had to give me CPR. You're just lucky he's so brilliant."

"He _is_ brilliant…" Kevin murmurs.

"Focus! I'm still mad at you!"

"Oh, Cecil, seriously, you can't get mad at me for something I haven't technically done."

"So? You still did it!"

"What about Tomas and Steve? What happened to them?"

"Tomas was still with you. Steve _left_ you both. He wasn't impressed with what you'd done."

Kevin stares. "Really?"

"Yes," Cecil says, voice suddenly serious. "Really. So maybe you should be more considerate of poor Steve this time around. Try not to go insane with power and break his heart?"

"…Wait, did you just say something _nice_ about Steve Carlsberg?" Kevin asks, suspiciously.

"Absolutely not," Cecil insists, very quickly.

"You so did."

"I did not. And I will deny it strenuously if questioned. And you'd better listen to what I totally didn't say."

So… wait… does that make this a miniature paradox, or..?

Oh, don't think about it.

***

The moment the cars pull up outside Steve Carlsberg's house – on the edge of the desert – Steve himself comes hurtling out the front door, Tomas following close behind.

"We thought you were dead!" Tomas exclaims, as Steve practically bowls Kevin over in the process of flinging both arms around the man.

"Did it work?" Steve asks, now wrapping them both in, which – given that he's the shortest by a good few inches – is quite an impressive feat.

"No," Kevin answers. "I'm afraid it didn't. Then GLaDOS tried to kill us anyway, and we ended up in Radon Canyon."

"And _then_ Kevin zapped us into a dark future where he'd destroyed Night Vale," Cecil points out, accusingly.

"…Wait, he _what_?" Steve exclaims, as the three of them break apart, though stay close.

"A dark future where Night Vale was destroyed," Cecil repeats. "Eventually, we found a way to travel back and stop it ever happening, but it wasn't easy."

"And we're still mad at you!" Carlos adds, glaring at Kevin, which only makes him grin sheepishly at them.

"You're going to keep holding that against me?" Kevin asks.

"Yes!" Carlos insists, tone bordering on hysteria, which makes Cecil grip his hand to ground him a little.

"Oh, it didn't really happen!" Steve insists. "You can't blame a man for something he hasn't done yet and will no longer get the chance to do!"

"Besides," Tomas adds, "I'm sure he didn't mean it."

"He meant it," Cecil points out. "But we stopped it. So that's that. Now. If the three of you could refrain from attempting to abduct us, attack our sentient AI sort-of friend, break spacetime or be unnecessarily creepy for _significantly longer_ this time around, we'd be grateful!"

Kevin makes a heart shape with both hands in front of his chest. "Oh, Cecil, we love you too!"

There really is no reasoning with some people.

***

The next day – the day _after_ Bring Your Scientist To Work Day – dawns. It's been a very, very long time coming. Cecil and Carlos lie in bed for quite a while after both of them are awake, just holding each other close. The world is put to rights and that's an amazing thing… but they alone are left with the memories of what really happened.

At least Bring Your Scientist To Work Day itself seems to have been a roaring success. When Cecil gets to the radio station – after taking the long way in just so that he can drive through Night Vale and look at it, whole and intact and safe – he finds dozens of letters and emails from listeners complimenting him on the previous day's show, not to mention a very large fruit basket from the scientists themselves, who he did of course save from a far scarier fate.

He doesn't describe the previous evening's events, though. Not this time. Some things are better off _not_ known.

Just after he goes to the weather, his phone starts to buzz. He looks at the screen, smiles to himself, and takes the call.

"Hey, you," he says.

"Hey," Carlos answers. "You OK?"

"Yeah," Cecil tells him, and it is at least sort of true. "I won't be much longer and I'll be home soon. I think tonight… I just want a quiet night in with you."

"Uh… see, there's sort of a thing…" Carlos starts out. "I was calling because… uh… Chell's here."

"She… is?" Cecil manages. "Please tell me spacetime isn't still broken?"

"No, I don't think so. She says there's something we need to see. Something down in Aperture."

"…It's not a miniature star, is it?" Cecil asks.

And, amazingly, Carlos actually laughs just a little. "No, thankfully it isn't. And apparently GLaDOS has promised not to kill us if we drop in, though Chell won't say how she managed to persuade her."

"…All right," Cecil agrees, trying not to sound too apprehensive.

"You'll like it!" comes Chell's voice in the background.

He has to hope she's right.

***

It's dark by the time they head out into the desert. Moonlight shines down from a sky awash with stars, all of them both not miniature and blissfully far away.

Just the way Cecil prefers his stars. The other kind are bad news.

"This is a minor truce," GLaDOS tells them, as they step into the stairwell that – as ever – has appeared from nowhere. "A favour for Chell. Otherwise there would be fire pits and neurotoxin."

"We know," Carlos says, with a smile.

Chell leads the way through Aperture. The corridors are quiet – except every time she and GLaDOS pause to bicker semi-adorably about something – and very much back to normal.

It's quite a relief.

As they're walking, Cecil's phone beeps, and he pulls it out. "Oh… it's a text message. It's…"

His breath catches.

"…It's from Dana."

"Dana?" Chell repeats.

"…She's a friend of mine," Cecil tells her. "She used to intern at the radio station, but then… for complex technical reasons, she ended up in another space and time. Somehow we can still text every now and then, so we do. Oh… well, that's sort of nice. She says, wherever she is, it's snowing purple snow."

"It is getting close to Christmas," Carlos points out. "Maybe it even applies in other dimensions. Is she OK?"

"Yes," Cecil answers. "Yes, I think so." He glances at Chell. "You'd like her. Very brave. Very smart. Like you."

Chell smiles. "Well, if you find out how to get her back to our space and time, you should introduce us."

Cecil and Carlos exchange a smile of their own. "I'll do that," Cecil promises.

"Awesome," Chell says. "Oh, we're almost there."

She pulls back a wall panel and leads them into the gantryways beyond the corridors… and there's something familiar about this particular section, though Cecil doesn't realise why until Chell gestures them to a door, off to the side.

"You know those weird pictures that appear in the facility?" she says. "Well, I found another one."

And she opens the door.

Beyond… is the very room in which Doug Rattmann was living in the future and, though there's no sign of him now, his artwork is here.

Cecil and Carlos both stand and stare at the back wall of the room. It depicts a cityscape in silhouette, surrounded by lots of little figures with spirals of purple and white on their chests. Standing over the city are two much larger silhouettes, each holding up a hand with a half-moon hovering above it, and with a clock placed between them: a clock with all its numbers replaced by the phases of the moon in sequence.

"Whoa…" Carlos breathes. "That one…" He smiles. "I think I like that one."

"'The picture is changing…'" Cecil whispers. "That's what Doug Rattmann said. And now… now it has. But, in the past… oh, my head."

"Paradoxes," Carlos says and, despite everything, he's grinning.

"I like this one too," Chell adds, gesturing to the side wall, where – amidst a swirl of colour – is painted a huge purple eye, with the Aperture logo as its iris. "The Eye and the Aperture. Sort of fitting, don't you think?"

"It'd make a good title for something," Cecil remarks. "Maybe an editorial. I'll have to remember that one."

***

They bid goodbye to Chell before GLaDOS can lose interest in the truce and start trying to threaten their lives again, and return to the surface, starting to drive back towards the distant, comforting lights of Night Vale.

"Well," Carlos says, finally. "I think that's quite enough excitement for one lifetime."

"I suspect there will be more, though," Cecil points out. "Sooner or later."

Carlos grins. "I suspect I'm actually looking forward to it."

"I knew you would be. You really are getting your head around how this place works."

"I really am."

They drive on through the darkness, under the starry sky.

"Can we stop a moment?" Carlos asks. "Not for long. I just… like looking at the stars out here."

Smiling, Cecil obliges, turning off the road and parking a little way out in the desert. They step from his car and move to sit on the hood, staring up at the night sky.

"It's so beautiful," Carlos remarks, after a moment. "I never get tired of looking at it. Of thinking about all that mystery and possibility out there. So many secrets of science, and wonders of the universe just waiting to be discovered. And yet…" He looks sideways at Cecil. "…There's nothing I love more in this universe than you."

Cecil pulls him in to kiss, holding him close in the comfortable darkness, feeling as though time really is slowing down, letting them live in this wonderful moment for as long as they need.

"And," Carlos adds, as they break apart, "seeing as – dark futures and world-threatening paradoxes aside – Bring Your Scientist To Work Day was such a success, I think it's time for Bring Your Radio Broadcaster To Bed Night."

Cecil grins. "Oh, I completely agree," he says. "For _science_."

"For science," Carlos echoes, with a smile, and pulls him in to kiss again.

And overhead, in the star-dotted sky… the moon is still watching.

**Author's Note:**

> And there you have it! If you've gotten this far, I hope you had as much fun reading as I did writing. Thank you so much to everyone who's left kudos or comments on the previous parts of this series: you make my world brighter.
> 
> I'm not ruling out more parts to this series if plots appear, so keep your eyes – third or otherwise – open if you're after more. And along that line… one of the reasons this final part was a little delayed was because I took some time out to write Christmas fic, which is set in Eye & Aperture 'verse but which I will be posting separately because OMG it is so not canon due to _reasons_! But if you fancy finding out what happened at Steve Carlsberg's Christmas party… check back in a day or so!
> 
> EDIT: ...And here it is. [The Alternate-Doubles' Christmas Party](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1141570).
> 
> I would like to apologise in advance! ;-)


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